JPM
France, July 2022–Present
JPM is a posthumous collaboration with my late Algerian father, who passed away unexpectedly in February 2022, in Toulouse, France. He existed at a distance, as he was not present during my upbringing. I knew little about his dreams, struggles, and victories.
I sublimate my father’s life, from war-torn Algiers in the 1950s to the Agence France Presse Paris HQ, at the pinnacle of his photojournalist career.
When I reentered his house in July 2022, it resembled a landfill. His archive was no different. I worked like an editor would, unafraid to make radical choices. Relationships started to form between bodies of work. They were free, fluid, and radiant. The archive attained a life of its own.
To escape the drudgery of packing his house, I often walked around the Toulouse neighborhoods where he lived and passed, taking pictures while pondering time, photography, and fractured roots.
All the pictures I cataloged, scanned, made, and incorporated in this project are asymptotic. Conclusions will remain latent. Perhaps light truly is the best disinfectant.
This project is developed in the context of the 2024 Penumbra Foundation Long Term Program Photobooks, and will culminate in a book dummy in December 2024.
France, July 2022–Present
JPM is a posthumous collaboration with my late Algerian father, who passed away unexpectedly in February 2022, in Toulouse, France. He existed at a distance, as he was not present during my upbringing. I knew little about his dreams, struggles, and victories.
I sublimate my father’s life, from war-torn Algiers in the 1950s to the Agence France Presse Paris HQ, at the pinnacle of his photojournalist career.
When I reentered his house in July 2022, it resembled a landfill. His archive was no different. I worked like an editor would, unafraid to make radical choices. Relationships started to form between bodies of work. They were free, fluid, and radiant. The archive attained a life of its own.
To escape the drudgery of packing his house, I often walked around the Toulouse neighborhoods where he lived and passed, taking pictures while pondering time, photography, and fractured roots.
All the pictures I cataloged, scanned, made, and incorporated in this project are asymptotic. Conclusions will remain latent. Perhaps light truly is the best disinfectant.
This project is developed in the context of the 2024 Penumbra Foundation Long Term Program Photobooks, and will culminate in a book dummy in December 2024.
