Galeria de Santa Maria Maior

R. da Madalena 147, 1100-006 Lisboa

10 . 10 . 2025 → 08 . 11 . 2025

tuesday - saturday → 03:00 pm – 08:00 pm

Artist

Edith Roux

The series Les Exilés follows the work Les Dépossédés carried out in the Uyghur autonomous region in China (East Turkestan) by Edith Roux which gave rise to the eponymous book in 2013. This new work brings together images of the Uyghur diaspora taken in different cities: Paris, Munich, Den Haag, Istanbul and Washington DC. Faced with the scale of the Uyghur drama and the difficulty of photographing in the region, the artist wanted to continue to bear witness to the situation by getting closer to the diaspora.

Uyghurs, even those residing outside their country, are under close surveillance by the Chinese authorities who threaten to send their family members to camps in East Turkestan, if they show the slightest protest the regime. In her work, Edith Roux took into account the desire of certain Uyghurs not to reveal their faces by creating a visual form that makes us aware of this ongoing genocide. To protect their identity, their faces are replaced by a blurred specular surface, in which viewers can partially reflect themselves. Is the shared space of the mirror, animated by the different reflections of visitors in the exhibition, the expression of the common part of humanity that connects us?

Uyghur children’s clothes dance to the rhythm of traditional music which sings the tragedy of exile. On these clothes, Uyghur faces appear and disappear according to the movements of the dance. The faces represent Uyghur prisoners photographed by Chinese police before being sent to camps. Many Uyghur children, separated from their parents and placed in orphanages, are completely sinicized, without any access to their own culture. The faces of the prisoners, projected onto the clothes, inhabited by the absence of childish bodies, are brought together in the movement of the dance, and swirl in an infinite breath of survival.

In the exhibition space, it is possible to consult the Chinese police website, hacked by an American foundation and from which the portraits of Uyghur prisoners come.
https://www.xinjiangpolicefles.org/images-of-detainees