Pablo Bartholomew

Indians in France - an intercultural dialogue

2009 Photographic Residency

During a ‘residency’ lasting several months in France, Pablo Bartholomew lived like an Indian in Paris and Strasbourg. The photos produced at the end of this sociological, human and artistic field work tell the story of his encounters and provide an insight into a discreet yet flamboyant community.

“My grandmother married outside her community in the 1930s and was disinherited. My mother went one step further and married a Burmese. So I come from a family where identity has always been a central question. I am not Punjabi, nor Bengali nor Burmese. I am all of them and none of them at the same time. That is what my dialogue with Indians in France was born from."

Pablo Bartholomew has continued this personal discovery over several years through his travels around the United States in particular. For this project made possible by the support of the museum, he was able to extend this work to France. His particular family situation and his career as a photojournalist have opened up numerous points of contact with immigrant Indian communities in Europe, and created a certain distance with regard to the notion of identity and heritage, which he plays on with irony.

Series produced in 2009.

Pablo Bartholomew : Indiens de France, un dialogue interculturel