“Each face is an undiscovered planet. Reflection of intimacy and vast land of surprise. If it flew up close, with a closed topographic frame, two eyes, a nose, a mouth shared by thousands of men and women: the micro-world is then opened on a macro-world, space space, universal pretext for endless variations … The identity of the other rests on the recognition of the tiny and huge variability of their face-landscape.” Guy Ferrer
This project is based on the photographic portrait, capturing the look and identity of 10 women living in Belgium, of various ages and social strata. In telling the story of this process and the victory of finally getting a place in the new society, their stories become transcendent. Making possible to the portrait to construct a narrative-tissue interaction in which the action of conversational own autobiography, interviews or testimony which leads to the rescue of the other, to recognize their presence or proximity.
These portraits were taken at home or workplace, were the result of an interview and talks by the artist Ecuadorian immigrant women living in Brussels. The interviewees have chosen a site within their everyday environment where they feel comfortable and quiet, where his identity is represented as “their space”.
Each person reconstructs memories from his own regard, whether the story is true or not, what matters is how the story has become part of our identity and represents us as a symbol.
This idea is based on the experience of the artist as a migrant in several countries, especially in Brussels, where she lived for a period of one year. By interviewing and listen to stories give meaning to one’s life, but also “the other” as interlocutor necessary for self-knowledge. In this relationship of dialogue occurs construction of identity and otherness, a kind of coin with its two inseparable faces: the individual and the collective.
