FRANÇAIS D’ISLAM — FRANCE KEYSER


curated by Dimitri Beck

The French Muslims, must face, unfortunately, two belonging identities, but they don’t want to have to choose between the French and Muslim one. As France Keyser tells us, they would like to be part of both identities. As Josephine Baker sang in the Thirties: “I have two loves, my country and Paris…” They too, in their own way, have two loves. “First of all they are the citizens who willingly commit in civic and towns activities to show that invoking Allah does not mean repudiating France. “Islam of France” has become a “French Islam”, and France is perceived as an Islamic land in all respects, especially as “Islamisté” (Islamic faith) now rhymes with “citoyenneté” (citizenship).”All these issues are handled in the work by France Keyser. Last summer Keyser has met again the people who had portrayed in color in 2008 and has created a new series of portraits in black and white, a stronger, more intimate, more delicate ones but more solemn than the last. The need for this new series was born from the feeling that by now we should speak of before and after January 7, 2015.

(from a text by Dimitri Beck)