Art and Memory: "Autrui", by Sinem Tas

Art and Memory: "Autrui", by Sinem Tas

From January, 18 at June, 8,  2025

As a part of Faberllull Artistic Residency, Francesca Pujol Fabré, known as Paquita, was interviewed by Sinem Taş, in Girona on September 17th and 18th, 2022. The artist conducted the interview with a semi-structured, in-depth approach, allowing Paquita the freedom to expand the related topics alongside the pre-prepared questions.

Paquita is 91 years old. At the age of five, she fled Girona with her mother, older sisters, and neighbours, seeking refuge in the Argelès concentration camp in France. Upon their return, they found out that her two older brothers were killed in the war. During the interviews, Paquita’s daughter, Maria Àngels, translated from Catalan to English. Sinem Taş asked about Paquita’s memories of the Franco regime in Spain, her experiences during exile, and her life as a woman during the dictatorship. During the interview, some very emotional and intense moments occurred.

Some of Paquita’s words:

I remember that the station was full of people with their bags. During the journey, my sisters were complaining that they were tired and their things were too heavy. My mom stopped and took my sister’s coat and threw it over the bridge. ‘Now it is not heavy anymore’ she said. I was carrying my doll all the way. I did not want to lose it and I remember that I was very happy that I had my doll with me when we arrived in France.*

Paquita’s narrative story and photography are collected to be part of the next artistic installations with image, text and sound formats.

*This paragraph was featured in the book chapter titled ‘‘A Self-Reflexive Assessment: Closing a Circle Opened with Franco’’ where the artist reflects on her experiences with Paquita and the healing power of art in her case. The chapter is set to be published in the forthcoming book ‘‘The Healing Power of Art: Art and Well-Being from Different Perspectives’’ in Türkiye.

This exhibition is part of a wider project of the same name, AUTRUI. This project consists of the artistic installation of photography, text and audio as mechanisms that reveal layers of meaning. The practice creates a form of artistic installation mechanisms to photograph expressions of the human eye as a representation of the absolute. Others, connected by the thread of individual narratives. The project includes a contextualization of the concept of Other and alterity by the French philosophers Emmanuel Lévinas and Jacques Derrida.

Sinem Tas (Ankara, Turkey, 1987), photographer and documentarian, has a doctorate in Multi Media Art, at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Lisbon and is a researcher at the CIEBA Research Center. She has worked as a photojournalist in a local newspaper covering news and protests in Izmir, Turkey in 2013. She has been a freelance photographer and filmmaker in Lisbon since 2014 and participated in KINO DOC film course projects in Portugal. He completed the master's degree in Multimedia Art / Photography at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Lisbon. In 2017, he directed his first documentary "My Kaaba is HUMAN", which was screened at various film festivals in different countries. The documentary inspired his ongoing project AUTRUI (previously called My Kaaba is HUMAN) where he photographs eyes and documents stories of people from different cultures and countries. He participated in group exhibitions in Portugal, Spain and Turkey; he held individual exhibitions in Portugal, Turkey and Morocco.

In 2022, she participated in an artistic residency in Olot (Faberllull), where he interviewed Francisca Pujol Fabré (Girona, 1933), about her experience of the Civil War, exile and Franco's military dictatorship.

More information at:

Web de Sinem Tas

My Kaaba is HUMAN, Europe, 2018.

All escapes start at home / Interview with Sinem Taş translated into English, Turkey, 2020.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/autruitr/  i https://www.instagram.com/autruiofficial/