HOW DO HISTORY, COLLECTIVE MEMORY AND OUR OWN REAL OR FANTASY MEMORIES LIVE TOGETHER, INSIDE EACH OF US? I am obsessed with family stories and, more broadly, with the way in which the history of human beings repeats itself...
Read MoreHOW DO HISTORY, COLLECTIVE MEMORY AND OUR OWN REAL OR FANTASY MEMORIES LIVE TOGETHER, INSIDE EACH OF US?
I am obsessed with family stories and, more broadly, with the way in which the history of human beings repeats itself ad infinitum.
From an invisible thread that I draw, my work is a research on atavism and on the layers of memories that constitute all of us. In my work, I constantly confront, repeat and superimpose my photographic archives with those of my ancestors.
Pursuing this research, I wish to go back to the origins of my family mythology and the origins of our collective memory to depict how the past intertwines with our current and idealized present.
The TWO-FACED PORTRAITS presented in this series are a combination of self-portraits and portraits that I found in a trunk which belonged to my grandmother.
Part of the series is in lenticular form:
From the front, you can see a hybrid image mixing both portraits while you see a black and white face from one side of the work and a colourful face on the other. Mixing contemporary images with analogue photographs taken at the beginning of the History of photography, we cross time and generations in just two side steps.
Similarities are visible in the poses and the connection with the photographer in the subject's gaze. Although I have a physical resemblance with my ancestors, the lenticulars suggest this idea of multiple inheritances, but also prove that the same emotions cross all human beings throughout the layers of time.
The rest of the series are 2D digital portraits:
In these variations, the eras merge. The viewer no longer knows which character is haunting the other.
In 2005, Armelle Kergall started the photographic project “Anatomie d’une famille française”, a series that captures the daily life of her family members and questions the invisible bonds of a bloodline. While photographing her relatives, Kergall discovered troubling elements that deeply resonated in her. She started investigating her family archives, leading her to develop several art projects which were part of KG+SELECT in 2019 ( Kyoto) – “Anatomy of a French Family/ Investigation in progress” – and which won her the “KG+SELECT Public Grand Prize”. Since then, her last series “Selfies-1920-2020” and “Natsukashii” were presented in various galleries and festivals.
