Originally, it was a kidnapping. “Once upon a time” is by no means a universal romance. In the highlands of Anatolia, the Caucasian tradition of marriage by abduction promises young Gulizar to her captor, Garabed. The great-granddaughter of these two protagonists, Rebecca Topakian inherits a family history that vacillates, over the generations, between reality and fiction.
Once upon a time, Gulizar and Garabed.
In the breach left by ambiguity – violence or love – and in memories abandoned hundreds of years ago, Rebecca Topakian gives birth to a series of photographs. She infiltrates the intangible life of her great-grandmother, branching out all her roots: desire, war and belief. From a possible dispossession, that of a body wrested from her consent, she gives Gulizar back her own gaze and slides it into the lives of her descendants.
Once upon another time, there was Dame Gulizar.
For the launch of the book Souvenir de la Tourte de Besse, photographer Clara Prioux has produced an installation on the front of the bookshop. The exhibition PRENDRE FORME will also be on view as part of PhotoSaintGermain on Quai de Solférino.
delpire & co
Delpire & co opens a new chapter in the history of Delpire Editions, in continuity with the spirit and approach of "image-maker" of Robert Delpire, its founder. Located at 13, rue de l'Abbaye in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, delpire & co is a publishing house, a bookshop, a gallery, a place for living and meeting people. It works towards the development of challenging projects, singular photographic writings, encounters between text and image, curatorial research, discoveries of new talents as well as forgotten works, political points of view and sensitive expressions.