Aline Deschamps is a Thai-French photographer now based mostly in Beirut, Lebanon. Passionate about geopolitics and visible arts, Deschamps’ function tackles social concerns this kind of as identification, exile, and cultural heritage. In her most recent sequence, “I Am Not Your Animal,” she follows the daily life of Sierra Leonean migrant domestic employees she satisfied in Beirut in 2020, documenting their experiences in Beirut and their reintegration back into their homeland in 2022.
“The series’ title stems from the conversations I had with this group of girls, most of whom experienced escaped from abusive homes and ended up victims of human trafficking,” Deschamps points out. “During the exchanges, all of them shared how considerably they felt dehumanized the moment they established foot in Lebanon. 1 sentence kept getting recurring: ‘They did not deal with me like a human, they dealt with me like an animal.’”
“‘I Am Not Your Animal’ aims to translate this intersectional working experience of being a black migrant female in Lebanon, going through systemic racism in a place in which the black entire body is typically lowered to a person placement: the 1 of a ‘servant’. It also needs to translate a far more latent and own violence: the just one of being stranded in a overseas region, and of striving to connect the unspeakable with the families again house. By juxtaposing these women’s letters with their each day lifetime pictures, the undertaking highlights their resilience uncovered in exile, the painful reintegration into their culture, and the extraordinary bond of motherhood which enabled both sacrifices and the obligation of survival – despite the distance.”
See additional from “I Am Not Your Animal” underneath.