In Search of my Curls –
These talks I wish I had. These questions I would never dare to ask.
The body of work is about the heritage and the question of ourselves. A research into what is passed on in the family, what remains from our origin and how to identify with it. Being the only one in my family to have curly hair, I started to question my identity.
Nowadays, we are facing a universal question of our origin, searching for an answer about our roots. Contrary to the common preconception we all are a mix of nationalities. This raise the question of identity: what I am? I am my nationality or my DNA? I am what my ancestors were and thus, who were they? Looking at my personal approach takes the viewer back to his own history.
I investigated my family archives and the memories of my relatives in order to find answers. An unsuccessful research through archives, DNA tests and involving my close family members. My parents answered a list of questions in my ancestors’ place from which, I invented fictional exchanges with them: what would they had pass on me? I attempt to be closer to my ancestors, however the transmission is done by close relatives and that is often the only source of knowledge, the rest is in the imagination. The question of identity is inherent in any search for origin.
Genealogists tend to find similarities and hereditary traits. As a genealogist,
I seek to explain something on the basis of verified data and thus strengthen my identity.
Aurélie Sorriaux
Aurélie Sorriaux born in 1994 is a visual artist from France. She is currently based in Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
After a Bachelor of Photography in France, she studied the Fine Arts for a year before to graduate from the Gerrit
Rietveld Academie with a Bachelor of Arts in Photography.
Her photographs are visual explorations through memory experience and the complex state of existence. In her recent
photo project titled ‘In Search of my Curls’, She examines my own heritage and looks at what stays in the family.
She exhibited ‘In Search of my Curls’ at the Foam Museum in Amsterdam in 2020.
Aurélie Sorriaux is a laureate of the GUP New Talents 2021.
