Photographer Carolina Arantes documents the daily life of French women of African heritage through her long-term First Génération project, published in a new book by fisheye editions. These women are believed to be in search of a solid mixed identity in the country.
This collection of images is a documentary work formed by interviews, family archives and portraits of women conscious of their struggle in France. It connotes the first generation of African-French citizens born in France after the country’s 1976 law of family reunification is a generation struggling for its place between the feeling of not belonging and its geographical origins.
These stories talk about various topics that are important to these African-French people. They speak of their plights in the French communities and compare the way things were in their generation to today.
These stories range from the sacredness of parents and elders. The today’s way of recognising their value and giving them the love they deserve to the difficulty of people with immigrant background to advance to important positions. One woman spoke on the barriers, stopping women from dreaming and believes that representation has given people confidence. There is a story on how public school has played an important role in introducing French culture, politics and language to the first generation of young people in France.
These stories are accompanied by beautiful images. Here are some of them as gotten from The Guardian.
Artist Biography
Carolina Arantes is an independent documentary photographer. Arantes is based in Paris, but regularly shoots assignments in other European countries and travels regularly to her home country of Brazil. She explores themes of social identity, democracy and equality, especially the consequences of the colonial legacy in our modern world.
Identity issues has always been an important question in her personal and professional life. Having moved houses so many times, she never felt she belonged somewhere. The fact of coming from a country where traditions are fragile developed on a melting pot of mixed origines, intrigues her about how colonial history is still present in democracies today. These issues are always surrounding her work and Stories.
Carolina received the Jean-Luc Lagardère Grant in 2015, the Firecracker for Female Photographers in 2017 and recently got the a National Geographic Explorer (2020). She is part of the international group Women Photograph.
Invited artist by Centre Pompidou in 2021 for a Conference and Masterclass inside the yearly educational program of the Museum “Elles Font L’Art”.
She has worked for medias and publications such as Stern, Le Figaro Magazine L’OBS, The Guardian, Le Monde, The New York Times, LENS Blog, among others.
Among her commercial clients, she has worked for: AirBnB, La ZEP, Kronenbourg, Renault, FCA, PUIG, LATAM, among others.
Not only has she won several grants -2020 National Geographic Explorer, 2017 Firecracker, 2016 Jean-Luc Lagardère Foundation Scholarship, 2015 Canon Award for Women Photographers, Finalist, 2015 Julia Margaret Cameron Award 7th Edition, finalist, 2013 Prix Emergentes DST, finalist – she has works internationally – mainly between Europe and South America – covering personal projects, corporate and press as well.
Caroline has exhibited at the 2021 La Gacilly Baden Photo Festival, 2020 La Gacilly Photo Festival, 2019 FOTODOKS Photo Festival, Munich, 2019 Indian Photo Festival + National Geographic, Hyderabad,2019 Forum des Images, Festival “A State of the World”, Paris and several others.
