Aviation Chronicles

«Aerial Chronicles» is a long-term photographic project that started 32 years ago about my journey as a pilot. A compilation both as an autobiographical visual journal and a historical document that describes the changes in the way of traveling with an aircraft throughout all these years. When the 21st century started, everybody was finally able to fly thanks to the fall of the wall and the birth of low-cost airlines. Years later, we are all concerned about climate change and carbon footprint. I have witnessed and documented this evolution, from an elite way of transport (which I witnessed when my father was a flight attendant) to a universal-mass transportation means which is now questioned and negatively perceived. I was 5 when my father had to escape from Algeria to France for political reasons. As a flight attendant, he hid in the aircraft galley. I was with my French mother escaping in the same aircraft to Paris. This situation will determine my view on migrants who also travel, but for completely different reasons than we in the Western countries do. Aviation Chronicles is a body of work that shows my personal tension as a son of a migrant with the need of contemporary societies to travel for pleasure. I focus on telling the stories of those who are invisible (homeless living in airports, ground employees, handling staff, cleaning crews, cabin crews …) those people who make it possible for we can fly.