“I Am Not Your Animal” by Photographer Aline Deschamps

Aline Deschamps is a Thai-French photographer now based mostly in Beirut, Lebanon. Passionate about geopolitics and visible arts, Deschamps’ function tackles social difficulties these types of as id, exile, and cultural heritage. In her most current collection, “I Am Not Your Animal,” she follows the daily life of Sierra Leonean migrant domestic personnel she met in Beirut in 2020, documenting their experiences in Beirut and their reintegration again into their homeland in 2022.

“The series’ title stems from the conversations I had with this team of women, most of whom experienced escaped from abusive homes and had been victims of human trafficking,” Deschamps clarifies. “During the exchanges, all of them shared how considerably they felt dehumanized when they established foot in Lebanon. One particular sentence saved being repeated: ‘They did not address me like a human, they dealt with me like an animal.’”

“‘I Am Not Your Animal’ aims to translate this intersectional practical experience of currently being a black migrant female in Lebanon, experiencing systemic racism in a country in which the black entire body is normally reduced to a single placement: the just one of a ‘servant’. It also needs to translate a much more latent and individual violence: the a single of staying stranded in a overseas place, and of striving to communicate the unspeakable with the people back again property. By juxtaposing these women’s letters with their every day lifestyle pics, the venture highlights their resilience found in exile, the unpleasant reintegration into their modern society, and the extraordinary bond of motherhood which enabled both sacrifices and the responsibility of survival – even with the distance.” 

See far more from “I Am Not Your Animal” below.