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Olivier Pasquiers has chosen to present four photographic series:
– THOSE FORGOTTEN WAR VETERANS: Thirty Moroccans who fought in the French army live in two residential Sonacotra homes (called ADOMA today) in Beauvais. Aged between seventy and eighty plus, they arrived in France from 1999 on. For most of them, it was the first time…
– FIRST PAY-PACKET: « I photographed those people who had accepted to participate in the project (around 20 people) and I noted down their souvenirs: the first workshop, the first pay. This first pay-packet which probably epitomized the beginning of adult life…
– THE PAINS OF EXILET: This work was commissioned by COMEDE (Medical Committee for exiles, Kremlin-Bicêtre) about people who were forced to flee their country. The testimonials were compiled by Jean-Louis Lévy, writer and doctor, at the origin of COMEDE.
– US… OUR BODIES: this work was part of a cultural project initiated by the Maison de Solidarité in Gennevilliers: The participants chose a photo which inspired them, not necessarily their own. This was the starting point for beginning the written work. Over the weeks, more and more photos of body fragments were made available, enabling the participants to write…
What kind of life do these Moroccans have? They speak no or very little French. They just live there, isolated in a residential home in the middle of an anonymous neighborhood… What kind of a life for these old or young people, women or men who wander aimlessly, with no home, no job?…What kind of a life do those people, of all ages, all conditions now live, having fled violence in their country of origin? …What kind of a life do those bodies have, suffering from extreme poverty, from the anguish of illness for which no care will be provided? …What kind of a life? Photography is ill-fitted to answer such questions; to describe the horror of rape; the hours spent being afraid, the infinitely long periods of misery, the years wasted through unemployment. Photographers are not allowed into torture rooms. Photographers cannot testify to violence committed to women as payment for their passage into Europe.So, I chose to sit down beside these people, to take photos of them, to listen to them.

Olivier Pasquiers was born in 1960. He is a member of the Bar Floréal group. He has been a photographer since 1991.
Taking photos is a way of being among men and women, being with them, looking at them, listening to them, waiting for them, getting close to them, greeting them and then trying to translate their trust in fragments and images.
He regularly works with writers, story-tellers, other photographers, graphic designers and humanitarian associations. He is the author of a number of publications.
His photos have been exhibited in public collections in the National Museum of the History of Immigration, the Historical Library of the City of Paris, the International Library of Contemporary Documentation, the National Library, the Deposit and Consignment Office, the Carnavalet Museum in Paris and in the Contemporary Art Fund in Seine-Saint-Denis as well as in several private collections.