Argania: Lack of information is my family history

Lack of information is my family history, records the artist’s personal search for her heritage. With little to no information about her family history, setting off on a journey tracing the story of her Moroccan ancestry and multicultural upbringing.

Using her teeth - carriers of one’s unique genetic encoding - as a starting point, MAryam Touzani photographs and assembles all the pieces of evidence she can collect: from dental X-rays and passport images, to her father’s death certificate and colonial maps omitting her ancestor’s region of origin. In her investigation where answers do not seem to come straightforward, photography becomes a poetic tool, allowing Touzani to reconstruct her past, in order to imagine her future.

You get two complete sets of teeth during your lifetime. As a baby, you have 20 teeth, and as an adult, you should have 32 teeth.

In this project, I employ the medium of photography as a visual method to investigate and integrate self-analysis notes into my exploration of family history. There is a distinct absence of information passed down to me; nothing was verbally shared, preserved, or saved. All I possess is my father's death certificate, which bears the names of his parents, yet I remain unaware of their identities.

I endeavor to embrace the process of immersing myself in a world where my genetic dental condition serves as a departure point for discussions about how I perceive, experience, and comprehend identity. It entails an in-depth investigation into my ancestry, meticulously documented through specific photographic techniques and languages.

My teeth become both an object and a subject in this practice of alienation. The process unravels the histories of migration, heredity, intergenerational traumas, social class, and the influence of different eras. The overarching question is whether my family truly existed and whether I can resurrect our history.

I come from a family where documentation was for particular people. I rely on the narratives provided by living relatives, always reminded that there is no absolute proof to validate these stories. Throughout this journey, I've often pondered whether I'm disrupting the fragile equilibrium of my family or merely accepting the reality of absence. Nonetheless, I persisted in seeking evidence of my family's existence.

I began accumulating fragments that connect to my identity, such as dental X-rays and my father's death certificate, which reveals his parents' names. During my search at the national archive of my parents' birthplace (BNI Bouayach, Morocco), I encountered maps from the French protectorate era, which omitted the region of my family's origin. Unintentionally, this void brought a sense of relief, an acceptance of the absence of a definitive self rather than a discovery. However, the question of where I truly belong remains ever-present. In this research, where answers are elusive, photography assumes a poetic role. It allows me to reconstruct my memory, enabling the past to redefine itself and giving me a means to reclaim my history.

This work serves as a visual metaphor in my quest to grasp my identity, symbolizing the dualism of my multicultural background. Embracing culture and heritage can be challenging when tensions arise between one's love for the country of birth and the place of ancestral origin. Since its inception, photography has been a tool to capture evidence, a way to freeze moments in time. By turning the camera towards my past and myself, I've opened a door to my future.

MAryam Touzani is part of »Guest Room: Nadine Henrich & William Camargo«