In the fall of 2010, while undocumented workers, or “sans-papiers”, were demonstrating in the French capital in the hope of getting their situation legalized, Shoshan took a series of portraits in a makeshift locale in the 18th arrondissement, near the Simplon metro station, which gave this series its name. A group of migrants, originating for the most part from the Republic of Mali, had occupied an empty building, from which they coordinated their struggle. After several visits, Shoshan set up an improvised studio there, using natural light and a piece of red plastic as a backdrop. He took 70 portraits of 18 different people, men and women, each named by initials only.

Both in process and result, the finished series evokes the longed-for “identity papers” and official photographs supposed to “stabilize” the identity of the subject. Shoshan’s T.N. subverts the logic of administrative identification and the use of photography as an “authenticating medium”, in order to present us with an alternate definition of identity: something ever-changing and in flux. This series of large format portraits, with a red background, makes it possible to manifest the personality of the subject, in contrast to the judicial concept of identity.

* The series of photographs of T.N. (Simplon) was acquired by the Georges Pompidou Museum in 2016 and exhibited at the Grand Palais (Paris) in November 2016 and at Kanal centre Pompidou (Brussels) in 2018.