Translation

Abidjan, Ouagadougou, Bamako, Tokyo, Miami, New York, Paris, Banjul .. destinations, moving silhouettes in a landscape. Both « worlds" and identical. I begin the photo series during the political and social crisis in Ivory Coast in 2011. That year, many unplanned trips punctuate my year, and each time I return to the country, at "the edge of a nervous breakdown." My country. I begin to imagine what my life would be if I was forced to flee from the beloved land. How to pass my exile? I watch people passing and I take the same photo: silhouettes of people running. Small silhouettes in a huge world .What are these people doing? Where are they going?

We all live the same way, whatever the country, the continent, the culture. we all walk in the same way for the same purpose, in search of well-being or a better life.
I am aware of the inequalities in travel, in our birthplace, our nationality, our culture and even our religion. We are not equal. For me, "the green African passport", traveling is not an easy act. Visas, restrictions. We are not "equal."

Immigration, migration and the desire to go discover, to become.
To cross the "forbidden zone" and project into this dream world . Change, find, move. Teleport.
Translation is a series about migrating. Literally and figuratively. By this embroidery work, I wonder what the world would be if we could all move without formalities or visa restrictions, without having to constantly "show guarantees".

By embroidering my photos, I just look for a dream world. I hatch, I erase, I redesign my vision of a dream world .. Like a child with a crayon, I deconstruct. I imagine traveling silhouettes, "erased" of white . I sew them on the other world, at the opposite side. I add color, I scribble this cold, realistic world.
The work is unfinished, I let the thread hang loose in order to open the field of possibilities, as if i could start over again. The city changes and becomes "the canvas of Penelope" as a body of work on which one works on continuously and never ends.

As i am embroidering these pictures, I am thinking about all those families who helplessly await the return of their relatives who migrated and who will never return.
Migration, this translation made of precious dreams and illusions to reach for a better life in the Western world.