Chambre 207 by Jean-Michel André

On August 5, 1983, while stopping for the night with his family on their way to vacation, Jean-Michel André’s father was murdered along with six other people at a hotel in Avignon. The case has never been fully solved, but the investigation did reveal a motive: an attempted robbery carried out by “small-time” criminals that escalated into a bloodbath.

At the age of 7, sleeping that night with O. In a room adjoining that of his father, Jean-Michel André, in a state of shock, lost his memory. Thirty years later, he began his research, opened many doors, and collected documents. As the truth eludes him, the author shifts his focus and disperses the horror to ward off the trauma. He revisits and photographs the landscapes he was able—or might have been able—to traverse with his father. He travels to Avignon, to the scene of the tragedy; to the Arles region, where one of the defendants was found; and to Corsica, the destination of their August 1983 vacation. He returns to Germany, where his father worked for the Foreign Ministry, and to Senegal, where he spent his early childhood with his parents. 

He combines his photographs with investigative elements, press archives, and family heirlooms to create a collection that explores memory, grief, and healing. 

Jean-Michel André’s approach stands in contrast to pathos and spectacle; it explores the limits of the image: what can be shown, how, why, and for whom? How can abstract concepts be made tangible and the intimate be shared in order to touch upon a form of the universal? 

The medium of photography is transformed into a healing tool; the work takes shape and becomes the sole driving force. 

The exhibition, conceived as a visual essay, is as much a reenactment as it is a reconstruction. Through its poetry, it transports us into an anachronistic timeline, blending the events before and after that night in Chambre 207. It highlights a quest for truth that, little by little, transforms into liberation.

↘︎ Credits: Exhibition co-produced by the Institut pour la photographie in Lille and the Mediterranean Center for Photography in Bastia 

↘︎ Publication: Chambre 207, Actes Sud, 2024