August 5, 1983 is a date that remains engraved in the memory of Jean-Michel André, then aged 7. That night, while staying with his father at a Sofitel hotel in Avignon (South of France), a one-night stopover with his family on the way to a vacation in Corsica, a robbery turned into a massacre. Armed criminals burst into the establishment, and the operation degenerates into unprecedented violence: seven people are gunned down in cold blood, including the photographer’s father. “Even if the investigation has never been fully validated, it’s the version of the robbery that has been retained by 98% of the press”, explains Jean-Michel André, whose father was working as a diplomat at the time, a profession that could also have exposed him to such incidents.
In the reports published by newspapers such as Libération, the tragedy shocked public opinion with its brutality and absurdity. The investigation concluded that it had been carried out by a group of small-minded criminals, but the exact motives remained unclear. The circumstances of the massacre remained unclear. Jean-Michel André, who was present in a room adjoining his father’s at the time of the events, is clearly in shock. “The children’s room was 207: that’s where I left my memory and my childhood. That night turned his life upside down. Not only did he lose his father, but also whole swathes of his memory. A void which, years later, would become the raw material for his artistic work.
Recomposing memory
In 2012, Jean-Michel André became the father of a girl. The event brought the past back to the surface, but not necessarily in a traumatic way. Having always sought to erase the past and avoid revisiting it, he realized that his child would one day ask about her grandfather. He felt compelled to provide her with answers.
Forty years later, he revisited and photographed places he shared—or could have shared—with his father. Combining investigation materials, press archives, childhood objects, and newly created photographs, he composes a visual narrative that questions memory, grief, and healing. This personal journey to reconstruct his past is an artistic process that, though painful at times, transforms art into a tool of resistance against forgetting and social injustice.
“I pursued research that began about a decade ago, opened many doors, and collected documents,” André recounts. “The truth eludes me, so I shift my perspective, dispersing the horror to exorcise the trauma. I revisited Avignon, the site of the tragedy; the Arles region, where one of the suspects was found; Corsica, our intended destination in August 1983; and even Germany and Senegal, where my father worked and where I spent my early childhood. I retrace the steps of a lost memory.”
Far from limiting himself to a simple exercise in memory, the photographer questions the role of images in the transmission of memory. How do we represent the unspeakable? How do objects and places become receptacles of memory? These questions structure the exhibition, as a journey in which each element invites first emotion, then reflection. “In these images, there are sensations,” says the photographer, ”smells, places. I can’t say it’s a rediscovered memory, but I’m really trying to transcend horror, to ward off bad luck to really move towards this form of reparation, of reconstruction.”
From grief to freedom
The exhibition in Lille is a real immersion in this intimate and sensitive universe, with a sober, uncluttered scenography, magnificent color and black & white prints, period documents and photographs that retrace Jean-Michel André’s personal story, which some are available as Braille plates or in relief, with a surprising level of detail, making them accessible not only to the blind, but also enabling everyone to discover photography with the sense of touch.
Naturally, the exhibition begins with the drama. “I can’t talk about all this because amnesia has left me unable to remember anything,” Jean-Michel André points out. “Then we come to room 207. I made the decision to return to the hotel. A risky decision. Above all, I didn’t want the event to resurface. Fortunately, this was not the case. But I did return to the hotel. I booked room 207.
Further on, the images seem to free themselves from this weight. These include landscapes and materials, which oscillate between abstraction and power, becoming mental spaces where past and present cohabit. “Here, salt echoes life, but also death, with this element at the center of the image,” illustrates Jean-Michel André. “Here, another rather abstract photograph, you could see a stele from a tombstone, for example, right in the middle.”
Another photograph, taken in the region, in Arles, reveals a group of pink flamingos standing in calm water. Their slender silhouettes are gently reflected on the surface. Twilight colors the sky with a palette of pale pink and blue, while the surrounding vegetation, dense and wild, frames the scene. The atmosphere evokes a suspended moment, a moment of peace in the heart of the Camargue marshes. “Birds are an important part of the story. For me, they symbolize freedom, transition, migration, travel, height and lightness. With this project, I’m freeing myself from an enormous weight.”
Resilience
While Room 207, whose critically acclaimed exhibition and book, published by Actes Sud, won the 2024 Nadar Award, is also a reflection on how spaces mark memories, the absence of memories remains a personal tragedy for Jean-Michel André. “The only memories I have of my father are the family photos I grew up with. I feel like a stranger in front of these images.”
For Jean-Michel André, this project is an act of reparation, but Room 207 also invites us to reflect on our relationship with loss, memory and resilience, reminding us that forgetting is never inevitable, and that art, as a vehicle of memory, can be a powerful tool for healing. The exhibition then becomes a place for dialogue, where everyone can project their own experiences of loss and resilience. “I’m a survivor, whose story echoes thousands of stories from here and elsewhere, of suffering and reparation,” says the photographer. “Photography is my support, my breath, my way of experiencing life and the sensitive. I become a seer to transcend the unspeakable and give back to the world some of its stolen beauty.”
The exhibition “Chambre 207” by Jean-Michel André, organized by the Institut de la Photographie de Lille, can be seen at the Musée de l’Hospice Comtesse, Lille, until February 2, 2025.
