BornInTranslation

“It symbolizes the crossroads of my identities and origins: Fulani, Vietnamese, French, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist. I have spent the majority of my adult life, which began when I was 14 years old when my father passed away, unraveling, analyzing and shaping my identity. To my own question: “What has he passed down to me?” - an interrogation both deeply intimate and widely universal - I answered by leaving France and moving to Senegal & Guinea-Bissau, as I searched for my nomadic Fulani roots. As I settled, I was overwhelmed by the reality of my mixed identity, irreducible to one culture and one set of moral values.

lt is the reunion of multiple histories that makes the singularity of who I am.

My identity, or rather identities, takes stock in a variety of ways and shapes, molded by my multiple legacies, by the forced displacement of those who came before me, and by my own wanderings.

The common thread is movement. More so, it is about trajectories. From Asia to Europe, Africa, America... Always going through cities where various cultures face each other, dive into each other. The question remains the same: How do I find harmony in my chaos?

This question is bigger than me. Regardless of the origins, we wander in the same maze. Who are we, those of us who live in daily dichotomies, more or less in peace, more or less violently? My own history prevents me from seeing the world as fixed: Connecting Hamadou to Frédéric, in one body, is an oxymoronic anomaly.”

And yet, I exist.

— HFBP, Maïa Sarah Kemp, Béatrice Adilah Touck

“Multiethnic identity finds a slow equilibrium. It takes time and understanding. In the end, it is up to us to find a balance between all these heritages, and this creative project allows us to live each of our backgrounds to the fullest. We must open the way, show our faces because sometimes – often, being mixed cannot be seen with a naked eye. It is therefore essential not to limit the perception of métissage to distinctive physical traits and skin tones. (…)

Métisses are much more complex than a mix of bloods and skin tones. Somewhere in this notion of métissage lies a great deal of hope, and of blurred borders. Of the new unions of people who once would have never met. With Born in Translation, we are going to transform our mother and father’s heritages, we are going to perceive, write and question other limits. We will tell new stories that haven’t been told yet, which everyone needed to hear to open up to the Other.”

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