Originally being a fashion designer for a period of ten years, in 2001 Carolle Bénitah began to make herself known as a French Moroccan photographer whose work was largely concerned with themes of memory, nostalgia, family and the passage of time. Her work was a form of reinterpreting herself and her own history as a daughter, wife and mother; defining her own identity. Bénitah tends to incorporate embroidery, beads, ink and collaging into her work through pairing these different art mediums with old family snapshots, or images taken during her childhood.

HER WORK:

These selection of images are taken from her three-part series entitled ‘Photos-Souvenirs‘, created between 2009 and 2014, intending to explores the memories within her Moroccan family and adolescence by reworking these images into a new form, creating heavy contrast, texture and depth into her work. Her work focuses on Freud’s concept of the uncanny; representing the suppression of emotions and perceptions alongside incoherent experiences during her life. While the images that she used were taken from approximately 40 years ago at the time, it meant that she could turn her attention to her own history and decipher what occurred at the time to allow her to express the emotions she may have not been able to portray at the time due to her being a child with a good perception of the world, as children do. Through this series, it enabled her to unravel the fears and secrets of her inner child that have constructed her into who she was as an adult, using those experiences who formulate her identity and differing perceptions of the world that would become more realistic and conscious. The concept of nostalgia is evident throughout this series where her images of her as a young girl would convey the sense of relativity whilst seeming so distant and unknown, creating tones of strangeness and comfort, juxtaposing each other.

Embroidering is perceived as a majorly feminine activity due to the fine work and precision it requires because of its delicacy, leading on to symbolise the way that traditionally, this is linked to the mother and daughters of the family taking up sewing and embroidery whilst waiting for the ‘man of the home’ to return. As Bénitah was born in 1965, she stated that:

‘Embroidery is intimately linked to the milieu in which I grew up. Girls in a “good family” used to learn how to sew and embroider — essential activities for “perfect women”. My mother embroidered her trousseau.’

Through utilising the expressions and insights practiced within her childhood, this gives her the ability to symbolise these developing opinions by pairing embroidery with old family archives. I like the concept behind this because whilst the image and the embroidery is supposed to represent these traditional roles at the time, it makes the snapshot have movement within it, adding direction and form into something that is old in order to formulate a new fresh piece. This could be representative of all of the ever-developing perceptions of life within society.

This reflection back onto childhood experiences confronts Bénitah to face her own inner conflicts and past repressions, whether they she may be consciously aware of them or able to use this as an aid to overtly face unpleasant memories in her subconscious. This would enable her to understand her current identity through being able to come to terms with what has occurred in her life as these experiences would have shaped her outlook on life, regardless of the emotions they convey. As well as this, the consistent use of the same shade of red in the images ensures that they all collaboratively link up to guarantee that the viewer can identify the story here and be capable of forming their own personal narrative through interpreting Bénitah’s story in their own perspective. This allows the viewers of her work to make a more personal and intense adaptation to draw their own conclusions and ideas based off of factors in their own lives. This can be a very powerful technique because it leads people to resonate with her work, for example if a parent of a young child sees this they may recognise a similar story from their own childhood, and begin to attempt to make sure similar things don’t occur for their child.

I would like to incorporate the methods of Carolle Bénitah into my own personal study about my experience of growing up with a brother who has Bipolar disorder because I feel that the concepts of our work, while not the same, correlate clearly. I think this use of an obscure metaphor in order to portray a story of loss is very effective through the ambiguous format that the lines move in. It is a way of visually expressing a story that the picture alone wouldn’t be relevant to or able to reveal. Because my intention behind my personal study is tapping into the human psyche as it concerns topics of psychological change, behavioural differences and the impact this has on a family dynamic, I feel that this will be a good starting point for me to experiment with and develop upon in order to make my work very metaphorical and symbolising. This idea of “performing a kind of exorcism of inner demons and past repressions” connotes a tone of liberation which could be very compelling in my work, and allow me to freely express myself, the concept and message that I am trying to send.

ANALYSIS OF HER WORK:

This specific image from Carolle Benitah’s series of Photos Souvenirs, engaging with her childhood constraints and anguish, particularly caught my eye. Upon initial sight, it is evident that this image was taken from around the 1970s to the 1980s from the overall tone of the archived image of Benitah’s family being a more yellowed tone due to age; instead of it just being black and white, the film has gained a cast of discolouration as well as a large crease in the top left corner from being folded. This connotation also stems from the aesthetics of the individuals in the image, wearing respectable and modest apparel that was very common in the 70s, whereas in the 21st century, children may be wearing more casual clothing such as a tracksuit, instead of such a humble appearance. As well as this, the different hairstyles portrayed in the image highlight the large contrast in generational trends to successfully demonstrate how old this image is. For example, the woman on the right holding the baby has had curlers in her hair in order to create a feathered look, which was the general choice for women in the 70s. As the embroidery string used is red, this immediately makes the image become eye-catching and more visible due to it juxtaposing the original image’s more vintage, recessed tone. Benitah has embroidered an empty silhouette around each person within this family image at an angle that is slightly off – the silhouette isn’t accurately outlining each individual. As this series is Benitah’s form of establishing her identity, this could be representative of looking outward herself, picking apart each family member and therefore, making her have an almost ‘out of body’ experience by revising over her past life events. This metaphor stems from the distance that the silhouette has with each person. Because this uses ambiguous shapes, this creates dynamic lines within Benitah’s work that add a sense of direction, causing the viewer to scan the image for a reasonable response. I feel that Benitah’s concept behind this can be perceived as forcing the viewer to become familiar with her family and really have to look at each individuals face and demeanor in the image. This would assist her in trying to portray a story of her childhood as it allows the viewer to gain an initial impression of what that person is/was like. Leading on from this, Benitah has formulated a randomised pattern of plus signs or crosses over four of the individuals faces. I feel that this may be a obscure metaphor for absenteeism and loss, hiding the faces of the people behind these markings. It adds a sense of anonymity, creating questions as to why these people have been concealed within their own family image. Because family snapshots kept as memories and keepsakes, this may be symbolising that the four people within the image have became part of an unpleasant memory that Bénitah desperately wants to forget and ignore instead of coming to terms with it. This evokes tones of mourning, deconstructing the myth of an ideal family and altering an image to hint at a personal secret behind it. Due to the needle piercing the image during the embroidery, this has left small holes and tears in the image that are only visible if the image is truly explored in detail. The violent nature of the needle stabbing the image, almost looking explosive, may suggest conflict, drama and/or pain because of the aggressive nature behind it – in this case, pricking the archived outlines of family members to erase their identities from being in the saturated image. Because of this image imitating the ‘snapshot aesthetic’, when the archived image has been photographed, there are slight patches of the light bouncing back off the image. This reflection, possibly from the cold artificial lighting from photographing this image again at a ‘birds eye’ angle, could be interpreted as a sort of ‘calm after the storm’. What I mean by this is that this reflection of like may act as a symbol for her own person growth by creating this study, healing some sort of unresolved trauma from her childhood that was gained from events that occurred relating to this image, due to brightness tending to correlate with cleanliness or holism.

Links:

https://www.souslesetoilesgallery.net/artists/carolle-benitah

https://www.souslesetoilesgallery.net/exhibitions/the-farther-i-remember

https://www.lensculture.com/articles/carolle-benitah-photos-souvenirs