Artist Introduction 艺术家介绍

Armelle Kergall is a visual artist who explores themes of identity, atavism and the connection between the past and the present through photography. Her work revolves around combining and layering family and personal archives, creating a visual dialogue between them.

In 2005, she started the photographic project “Anatomie d’une famille francaise”, a series that captures the daily life of her family members and questions the invisible bonds of a bloodline. While photographing her relatives, she discovered troubling elements that deeply resonated in herself.

In 2014, she won the <Bourse du Talent Portrait> for her series <Anatomy of a French Family>. This portrait series documents of her very large family. The discoveries she made in the course of this work have had a profound effect on her and have influenced her artistic approach. They led her to research her family trees and her grandfather’s photographic archives.

Artist Statement

As an artist, I am captivated by the intertwined relationship between history, collective memory and our own real or perceived memories. My work is a deep exploration of atavism and the layers of memories that shape us. Through my photographic archives and those of my ancestors, I delve into the origins of my family mythology and collective memory to reveal how the past weaves itself into our present and moulds our lives.

My goal as an artist is to provoke reflection on these universal themes and to question the relationship between human beings and their history.

作为一名艺术家，我深深着迷于历史，集体记忆与我们自己的真实或感知记忆之间交织的关系。我的作品是对遗传性和塑造我们的记忆层次的深入探索。通过我的摄影档案和我的祖先的档案，我深入探究了家族神话和集体记忆的起源，揭示了过去如何编织成现在，并塑造了我们的生活。

作为一名艺术家，我的目标是引发人们对这些普世主题的思考，并质疑人类于他们的历史之间的关系。