When I arrived in Brussels from Togo, I had to go through the bureaucracy that migrants face but had no citizenship papers and no right to stay, which meant I couldn’t look for work. So I had to stay at home without any kind of assistance. I began going to church and met a woman there with a background in video editing who offered to train me in video and film production. I lost contact with her after she left church but I wanted to learn more. Eventually, I found a college, the Sint-Jans-Molenbeek Academy of Drawing and Visual Arts in Brussels, where I could study film and photography. (...) I soon discovered my creative path and maximised the technical and creative potential of analogue photography.
I clearly recall the first photograph I ever took. From that first photo, my focus was always on producing work for myself and not for public show. In fact, one of the requirements for this three-year course was to produce a self-portrait to be judged before course assessors. Even then, I didn’t want my face to be seen so just took a photo of my body and kept myself anonymous. But the assessors encouraged me to have a more candid approach and share my story. As I progressed with the course, a teacher remarked on the quality of my work and encouraged me to approach a Brussels gallery to exhibit my pictures. But I felt uncomfortable – I was quite shy at the time. Even after the exhibition, I didn’t pursue other exhibitions because I wasn’t ready to share my personal story with the world. But I guess the transition had already occurred.
(...) I didn’t have the official papers that gave me the right to stay in Belgium so I felt I was always on a journey. I had a child with me yet couldn’t give her safety, security, a home or an identity. Indeed, I do have an identity but in Europe and Belgium I just feel like a nobody. I feel I am on this constant journey to find acceptance and in search of somewhere to settle down and find peace. So the pictures I create are documenting this journey to a place where you can just be yourself and don’t need ID cards and papers and can just exist as a human being.
(...) I feel invisible. I feel like I don’t exist. Yes, I have family connections – I have left family behind in Togo but here in Europe I am alone. On the streets of Belgium, no one really sees me and this is a very personal pain. It’s difficult to share and describe so I document it creatively through my photographs.
Self-portraiture is a way of writing without words. My aim is to reveal the deepest parts of myself.
Hélène Amouzou
Amazing!
ReplyDeleteCheers, Wim!
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