ISSN · 2183-5527
After years of neglect, the Colonial War returned to my concerns
After many years of relative neglect, the Colonial War returned to my concerns. At the end of the summer of 2006, I bought a digital camera and went to the Military Museum. I wanted to photograph a G3 and a Kalashnikov because of their symbolic value. The resulting images would end up being just the tip of the iceberg.
In that enormous room of the Military Museum, I was a soldier. I was mobilized in Africa, perhaps in Mueda, or Nambuangongo, or Guileje… I lived through days of boredom and nights of terror, I was ambushed in the bush, I slept clutching my G3 rifle, I went hungry and thirsty, I vomited combat rations, I squandered savings playing cards, I «smoked» cigarettes in suffocating doses, I fell «intoxicated» with red wine and beer, I «died» ingloriously on the trail. I condemned myself, I committed suicide, and I forgave myself.
It was a long performance witnessed only by a Canon 5D. It occurred simultaneously with an intense search for working material. As my direct experience of the war was nil, I bought books, acquired everything else I could find at flea markets and antique shops. The numerous testimonies I had access to were immensely useful, as was all the trinkets I managed to accumulate. I needed credible information to fill my ignorance, and objects to populate my imagination.
Back home, I worked on a north-facing balcony exposed to the elements. In the adventure that followed, I invented maps, protected myself from imminent attacks, built card castles, and was able to tell a story to two people, something that was forbidden to me in the museum. The war godmother who came to me out of nowhere was the only possible companion. A brief miracle. It served to mitigate the suffering. The emptiness. The loneliness. The hopelessness.
Everything I invented was false. And spectral. But I never created anything more truthful.