“On est vidée de l’être qu’on est.” (One’s own Being is voided out)

“Self portraiture is a way of writing without words. My aim is to reveal the deepest parts of myself.”

Hélène Amouzou

Hélène Amouzou’s ephemeral and ghostly self-portraits caught my attention. While in these two photographs she does not truly appear, her absence points to her presence if only by suggestion.“ Her ghostly image haunts each frame and hovers in the no man’s land between absence and presence.”

Hélène was born in Togo and has been living with her daughter in Brussels for the last 14 years. These photographs were taken in the attic of her residence during a two-year period when Amouzou was seeking asylum in Belgium and waiting for her official residency visa. In her self-portraits she removes herself pointing to the loss of identity and self that is the result of a life lived as an immigrant waiting for legitimacy in her new country of residence.

In a nod to Malick Sidibe she overlays pattern of clothing over pattern of background but here she forgoes the figure totally. The dress is on a hanger and set against the torn wall papering of the wall. She is nowhere to be seen and her absence is painfully felt. When she appears, blurred and unsubstantial, she merges with her surrounding.

She is barely visible behind a vase full of colorless leaves and flowers.

She chooses to work with black and white film rather than digital media favoring the effect of chance. Forgoing the sleekness and color vibrancy of contemporary photography, the world she portrays – her world – is devoid of color and at times of physical substance. The psychological weight is that much more convincing and poignant as a result. She does appear in her photographs, most of the time naked, exposing her vulnerability while at the same time challenging perhaps a deeply ingrained Eurocentric ethnological gaze. Her work while indebted to Francesca Woodman is uniquely personal. Her voice is a quiet voice yet one that echoes the experience of many immigrants from Africa and deserves all our attention.