2023
Various formats.
Project initiated as a commission work for Aperture Foundation, with the support of Fujifilm US.
This series is inspired by the novel «Double Nationalité» by Nina Yargekov, in which a woman wakes up with amnesia in Charles de Gaulle airport and wonders who she is. She starts an investigation following object-clues she finds in her bag and home.
Born in France with armenian origins, I became progressively Armenian as a grown-up, until I decided to learn the language, ask for the citizenship, and get an apartment in the capital city, Yerevan. I started living two parallel lives that never entertwine : passports, keys, SIM cards, wallets, alphabet or credit cards... Everything is doubled. My French friends don’t have any idea of my life in Armenia, and the opposite is true. I started following, like the character in «Double Nationalité», clues that could help me understnad who I am : objects I find, or targeted advertisments that show up on my Instagram. In a series of self-portraits, I dress up in possible Rebeccas, ones that I am, could be, or am expected to be.
Wether it is the self-portraits where I never look totally at ease, the objects that are clearly not enough to define me, or the targeted ads that are always ridiculously out of point: nothing seems enough to define this double identity.
https://aperture.org/editorial/the-double-life-of-a-french-armenian-photographer/