Bruno Boudjelal — Voyage à Setif

Photographier l’Algérie
Institut du Monde Arabe – Tourcoing (FRANCE)
Du 28 février au 13 juillet 2019

Journeys to Setif with my father / Voyages ‡ Setif avec mon pËre

As part of the collective exhibition “Photographing Algeria”, Bruno Boudjelal presents his series “Journey to Setif” and his installation “Correspondences” in which he displays his roots.

In 1993 Bruno Boudjelal retraces his paternal heritage in Algeria. This discover will be the starting point for 10 years of individual and personal exploration which brings him to be at ease with the subjectivity of his outlook.

“In June of 1993, I traveled to Algeria for the first time to work on a photographic reportage on Alger. This first trip, however, bore much more meaning than I had expected it to. It was the first time I trod the ground my father had before me, the ground I had never known before then. (…) All I knew of was my father’s birthplace, quickly learned glancing over a family register. This was enough to find him though, one day in 1993, in a small village in the Sétif region, where a group of women in tears greeted me with cries of despair.”