During the Evian Accords, on March 18, 1962, Raymond Depardon was 19 years old. During the negotiations between France and the FLN, he was one of the few photographers present on site during this historic event which ended the war. At the Institut du Monde Arabe (IMA) in Paris, the cult photographer revisits this unique moment with images taken during his two trips to Algeria, in 1961 and 2019, and unpublished texts by the great Algerian writer Kamel Daoud .
His eye in my hand. Algeria 1961-2019. The result of this meeting between Raymond Depardon and Kamel Daoud took shape in the form of an exhibition presenting a hundred photographs and texts at the same time ” playful and literary “.
RFI: What was the first photo you took in 1961 on Algerian soil? ?
Raymond Depardon : It’s a photo in the center of town, in the gardens, in front of the main post office. It was impressive for a young Frenchman who was 19 in 1961. We left Marseille by boat and arrived in a city incredibly bigger than Marseille. People today cannot imagine that in the 1960s it was the same country! So, we left a small town in the Mediterranean and arrived in the Bay of Algiers, in a huge white town. I arrived there, in a somewhat curious, anachronistic place. There were Algerians, Africans, plus a million Europeans. It was very strange. The great photographers, my “elders”, they were fed up, because they were badly received. It was difficult to take pictures. It was very disturbing, because it was a city where French was spoken and at the same time we were not in France. We were frowned upon, rejected. So, I had these photos and I thought it would be good, sixty years after the independence of Algeria, for these photos to be reclaimed by the Algerians. They belong to the Algerians, to Algerian history.
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RFI : Why do you say that Algeria has no images ?
Kamel Daoud : Because you have to make the effort to give images, you need a policy, a will to do so, a cultural policy, tourism, travel, visas – in both directions. The other aspect is that there is a screen effect of the archives, that is to say that we always see Algeria through its archives during the war of liberation. These archives also form a screen and do not allow the present to pass. We always talk about the past. Algeria is also a country locked in memory by others. We only talk about it when it comes to colonization or decolonization, rarely in the present tense. The news item is a bit like the tragedy of the migrant boats, if not the dark decade and the fight against the Islamists, etc. But the real country has no images.
[Vidéo] The photographer Raymond Depardon in a word, a gesture and a silence
Why your photos taken during the Evian Accords have become iconic in Algeria ?
Raymond Depardon : When I showed these photos to the Algerians, that was the second shock. They told me : ” All of these characters are dead. All the negotiators on the Algerian side are no longer there. » [Krim Belkacem, chef historique du FLN qui a signé l’acte d’indépendance de l’Algérie, a été assassiné en 1970 par la Sécurité militaire algérienne, NDLR] They were more or less all dismissed, even executed, because they did not agree with the power afterwards. In the photos, these people are very happy, super well dressed. At the time, I had never seen Algerians like that, nice, speaking French, we could take all the photos we wanted. I was in this villa, on the Swiss side, opposite Evian. And every morning there was a helicopter that shuttled.
RFI : You didn’t go to war. Born in Mostaganem in 1970, you are a child of independence. For your common project His eye in my hand. Algeria 1961-2019you say to have made texts “ playful and literary “. What is the role of your words in relation to the images of Raymond Depardon ?
Kamel Daoud : When we look at a photo, we do so with his person, his objectivity, his culture, his prejudices, his conditioning. A photo always wakes up. A photo always provokes text, emotion, nostalgia. Even a photo of an unknown landscape provokes a reflection, an affect, a feeling, sensations. For me, it was a question of writing texts which do not add something to the photo, because it is self-sufficient, but of writing texts which start from the photo to end up in something else. . Texts that revolve around the photo, but which are accompanying texts rather than commentary or reflection texts. I didn’t want to limit the gaze of the reader or the visitor, but just to say: this is what I feel. At the same time, I wanted to free the gaze. Everyone should feel free to look at these photos as they wish. Instead of looking at them through its culture or just the usual history or cliches.
In 2019, returning to Algiers, did you ever have in mind a photo that you absolutely wanted to take ?
At the invitation of the Algerians, we returned to the streets of Algiers and Oran. Show me your street and I’ll tell you who you are. As Kamel Daoud says: “ Algeria has no images ! We don’t know what Algeria looks like. »
► Raymond Depardon/Kamel Daoud: His eye in my hand. Algeria 1961-2019exhibition at the Institut du Monde Arabe (IMA), in Paris, until July 17, 2022. The book is co-published by Barzakh and Images Plurielle.