Roots: Back to my home-village 25 years later…

2015 onwards

My parents moved to the small village of Quincy-Voisins when I was five or six years old. They bought their first home there. Later, my father built a pavilion. My parents bought a coffee shop thereafter. They sold the property before their divorce.

When I departed for Paris in 1991, I left behind many years of memories. This began to feel like a problem only after the birth of my son, Sacha, now nine years old. I began thinking about the concept of my ‘roots’, and my son’s roots, realising that exiting a place is withdrawing from certain people. I often felt the urge to return, but my work and passion for photography, which began when I was about twelve and took me to different places as an adult, distanced me further from my hometown.

In time, I discovered old photographs, including a group picture with classmates. I was probably nine years old in it. I recognised faces and recalled names, a recovery that soon manufactured an obsession to create a photographic archive of my roots as they exist today. I wondered about the children in the group photo. They were about my age. What had they become? This was the village where I first made myself, attended school, found my first friends. If anywhere, my story about how I see the world begins here.

One day I hope to take my son to Quincy-Voisins and join in my investigation. For now, I have vintage photos, meetings, and my own rediscoveries to make.

Jean Michel Delage has worked as an independent photographer. In addition to stories about India, Palestine, Bangladesh, and Eastern Europe for magazines, he has also published three books entitled Vanakam, Kesaj Tchave, and On Evre River. His foray into animated and documentary film has produced two films. He often combines video, sounds, and photography in his work. Jean Michel lives and works in France.