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In 1961, the very young Raymond Depardon produced several photographic reportages in Algiers, then in Évian, during the first negotiations to end the Algerian war. Almost sixty years later, with the desire to publish these photographs from an Algerian perspective, he met Kamel Daoud. A four-handed book project was born, led by Barzakh, the writer’s Algerian publishing house. Raymond Depardon returned to Algeria in 2019 to take a series of photos first in Algiers then in Oran where he met Kamel Daoud.

Barzakh publishing proposed to the Institute of the Arab world to make an exhibition from the book. Its president Jack Lang was immediately seduced: the release of the book will be accompanied by an eponymous, sensitive exhibition, with rare images and unpublished texts which will echo each other while being able to be seen or read separately: two worlds, two independent and yet complementary views that enrich each other…

Installed in two spaces (levels -1 and -2), the exhibition presents 80 photographs by Raymond Depardon and five unpublished texts by Kamel Daoud. It comprises three sections: Algiers 1961; Évian-Bois d’Avault 1961 / Oranie 1961 (level -1); Algiers and Oran 2019 (level -2).

In rooms enhanced with a gradation of blues evocative of the Mediterranean, through a fluid scenography that facilitates the passage between the two mediums, the visitor navigates between the large texts, suspended like so many installations, and giving transparency which allows to guess the pictures through them. Texts and photographs are framed identically to emphasize their equal importance. “Comets”, flashes inspired by photographs in Kamel Daoud, are treated like so many small works, forming a line on the horizon towards which the gaze tends. Finally, an “exfiltration text” guides the visitor towards the exit of the exhibition.