Back to the Journal / Exhibition and film · 2022

Kamel et Raymond

Son œil dans ma main · Institut du monde arabe, Paris
8 February - 31 July 2022

In 1961, Raymond Depardon photographed Algiers and covered the first peace talks at Évian. When he returned to the negatives decades later, he wanted an Algerian writer to read them with him. Kamel Daoud had been born after independence. In 2019, Raymond Depardon travelled back to Algiers and then to Oran, where Daoud lived.

The Paris exhibition set eighty photographs alongside five new texts by Daoud. The route moved from Algiers in 1961 to the negotiations in Évian, then to Algiers and Oran in 2019. Claudine Nougaret’s film closed the exhibition.

Algeria, 1961 and 2019

Pedestrians cross a striped roadway seen from above — Boulevard Bugeaud, seen from the Hôtel Aletti. Algiers, 1961. © Raymond Depardon / Magnum Photos.

Figures on a flight of steps — Algeria, 1961. © Raymond Depardon / Magnum Photos.

Two figures on a street corner — Algeria, 1961. © Raymond Depardon / Magnum Photos.

Two young women holding hands beneath trees in Algiers — Algiers, 2019. © Raymond Depardon / Magnum Photos.

From the photographic archive

Raymond Depardon with his camera, beside Kamel Daoud — Raymond Depardon and Kamel Daoud, 2019.

Street scene photographed from above — Photograph by Raymond Depardon.

Men standing beside a car — Photograph by Raymond Depardon.

People outside an industrial building — Photograph by Raymond Depardon.

Two figures passing a doorway — Photograph by Raymond Depardon.

Men gathered on a pavement — Photograph by Raymond Depardon.

Pedestrians at a road crossing — Photograph by Raymond Depardon.

An image on a television set — Photograph by Raymond Depardon.

A helicopter in flight — Photograph by Raymond Depardon.

Figures in a wooded landscape — Photograph by Raymond Depardon.

A figure next to a parked car — Photograph by Raymond Depardon.

A man in a crowd — Photograph by Raymond Depardon.

A wall along a street — Photograph by Raymond Depardon.

The film · Kamel et Raymond, 22 min

Writer Kamel Daoud and photographer Raymond Depardon sit down to talk about Algeria, the images they carry of it and the work of remembering. Claudine Nougaret made the film for the exhibition Son œil dans ma main.

Directed by Claudine Nougaret. Cinematography by Simon Depardon. Music by Albin de la Simone. © Palmeraie et Désert, 2022.

Exhibition details

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