July 5, 1962, the liberation of Algeria. As the country finally celebrated its independence, one question remained: what became of the colonial archives, those thousands of administrative documents? Some were destroyed, others repatriated to France, while rumors suggest that several were thrown into the sea. It is this hearsay, this void left by oblivion and disappearance, that inspired Donia Jornod’s collages. Her work is based on raw archival images, both personal and gathered through her research in various institutions. Through her compositions, she creates a space where fragments of history, collective memory, and erased narratives intertwine. Her work reveals the fantasy of a recovered history, a dream of an elusive and ever-fleeting truth.
