Aline Deschamps is a Thai-French photographer presently based mostly in Beirut, Lebanon. Obsessed with geopolitics and visible arts, Deschamps’ work tackles social points reminiscent of id, exile, and cultural heritage. In her newest collection, “I Am Not Your Animal,” she follows the each day lives of Sierra Leonean migrant home employees she met in Beirut in 2020, documenting their experiences in Beirut and their reintegration again into their homeland in 2022.
“The collection’ title stems from the discussions I had with this group of ladies, most of whom had escaped from abusive households and had been victims of human trafficking,” Deschamps explains. “In the course of the exchanges, all of them shared how a lot they felt dehumanized as soon as they set foot in Lebanon. One sentence stored being repeated: ‘They didn’t deal with me like a human, they handled me like an animal.’”
“‘I Am Not Your Animal’ goals to translate this intersectional expertise of being a black migrant girl in Lebanon, going through systemic racism in a rustic through which the black physique is usually lowered to at least one place: the one in all a ‘servant’. It additionally needs to translate a extra latent and private violence: the one in all being stranded out of the country, and of attempting to speak the unspeakable with the households again dwelling. By juxtaposing these girls’s letters with their each day life footage, the mission highlights their resilience present in exile, the painful reintegration into their society, and the unbelievable bond of motherhood which enabled each sacrifices and the obligation of survival – regardless of the gap.”
See extra from “I Am Not Your Animal” under.