Circulating Bodies: Retelling the Trauma of the Algerian War Through Photography and Art

The diaspora of former French citizens of Algeria, known collectively as the Pieds-Noirs, often seek to reattach themselves to each other and to their lost homeland by circulating images and texts from home. While the postcard-perfect images of Algeria that initially dominated community remembrance still circulate freely, since 2005, traumatic images from the Algerian War for Independence have multiplied. This chapter explores the effects of recirculating photographic images of dead, living and surviving bodies in art by Nicole Guiraud, who survived a famous bombing in the Algerian War. Response to the repeated images ranges from denial, shock and recognition. Relying on theoretical works on photography of traumatic events and the work of memory, the chapter examines how images of traumatised bodies are circulated and integrated into Guiraud’s art with the aim of understanding how individual suffering can be integrated into collective memory and whether repeating images intensifies or mitigates trauma for the artist and her spectators.