“Selfies 1920–2020” is a series of collages that juxtaposes my grandfather’s “selfies” with my own, depicting our happy memories in parallel: birth, honeymoon, holidays etc.

Among the numerous family pictures I rescued from my grandfather’s archives, there are a large number of self-portraits. These pictures have mainly been shot between 1920 and 1969 at his residence – sitting in an armchair, with a book to reflect the light from the window, or photographed with my grandmother or with his sons. He also photographed himself staging at work and even during his holidays.

I wondered, what were Antoine Kergall‘s reasons of representing himself? Was he just documenting his life and the different places he lived in? Was he testing the cameras? Or was he already practicing the “selfie” as we know it today, fixing on film his life as an anonymous Instagrammer. His pictures were challenging our approach of doing selfies.  

I decided to explore my own archives to compare our respective approaches and then began to mix and match our happy souvenirs together. I chose pictures that make us smile or that remind us of life’s important moments. 

Each collage is juxtaposing a picture of Antoine Kergall printed on classical baryta paper with a picture of mine printed on washi paper.

For some of the collages I duplicated, cut, and reused pictures in different sizes. For others, I cut the image into narrow stripes, fixed the stripes on acrylic, and inserted them in the frame. For some, I even repeated the main character’s silhouette while cutting their shape out of other photographs. All these techniques attempt to create volumetric images through the superposition of different layers.

All the artworks are framed in tailored Paulownia boxes. Normally used to protect precious goods, these boxes are also reminiscent of entomologist’s boxes. 

I currently pursue my plastic research on how the past is entrenched in each of us, focusing particularly on the theme of “Natsukashii".