HELENE AMOUZOU

REZVAN ZAHEDI

L'ENTRE DEUX

07/10 - 22/12 2023

Palestinian writer and poet Mourid al-Barghouti writes "There is no one exile. They are always exiles. When Rezvan Zahedi left Iran and Hélène Amouzou left Togo, they were fleeing a political regime. They were not yet 30 respectively. For these two women on the move, it was a matter of life and survival. The first takes a stand by photographing street graffiti denouncing discrimination against women, while the second becomes a political opponent after her husband is the target of a manhunt.

The gallery offers a tale of invisibility and the constant struggle to exist.

Rezvan and Hélène become voices and cries for all those forced into silence, words and images intertwining to bear witness to their experiences. They transpose their view of the state of the world, of inequalities, of the various forms of violence resulting from repressive politics and governments. 

Rezvan combines photography and calligraphy in a committed art form, where the female body becomes a banner, living material for demands. She places a series of inscriptions on the intimate, taken from the Iranian poet Forough Farrokhzad, progressive works or discriminatory restrictive texts. It's an act of resistance. The hidden face refers to anonymity, to the censorship to which the body, mind and thoughts are subjected.

Hélène's analog self-portraits photography compose an intimate notebook. Moving, she captures the exile's invisible state of solitude, a period during which suffering runs through his daily life. Her work becomes Fabrique de nouveaux territoires. In her photographs, she creates another country. Between two worlds, Hélène is an apparition, her body blurred in double exposure, spectral, merging with an abandoned apartment. The wallpaper in the "Self-portrait, Molenbeek" series is in mutation, decaying like the world around her, unwilling to look her brothers and sisters in the face. 

Hélène and Rezvan have no choice but to face their struggle head-on. The body is frontal and inhabited. In their struggle, there are no concessions, no detours. Hélène was able to return to Togo, but for Rezvan this is impossible. They remain stories of exile.