Double appartenance

« Double appartenance, » is a french expression which refers to a sense of belonging to two worlds, a central theme in this series of portraits, urban landscapes and personal stories of recent immigrants to Canada. Bringing this exploration of identity, displacement and personal history to publication and exhibition was a way for my creative partner Philippe Montbazet and myself to respond to the dehumanizing political debate around immigration in 2014 in Quebec. Over a period of a year, we worked in a Montreal school that offers language training to recently arrived immigrants and refugees. We gained the trust of the students and then interviewed and photographed those interested in our work. We photographed them against a black background, removing context, focusing on their gaze and gestes, trying to evoke their issues of loss and displacement. We often photographed them while engaging them in discussion, pointing the viewer to their personal stories which are an important part of the work. Finally, we photographed elements of their new world, the city of Montreal, an often disappointing new home for immigrants, a « mundane, sometimes cheerless, liminal space, » in the words of Redux photographer and former World Press Laureat Roger Lemoyne, who has written the preface to the book "Double appartenance," which will be launched by Éditions Cayenne in December 2015 at the exhibition in Montreal.