[dentifier] K2025-017

"All art is a collaboration with what came before and what comes after. My use of quotes or references also stems from my interest in the idea that identity is always a borrowed identity, borrowed from others." Mekhitar Garabedian, 2015.

In 1980, French filmmaker Alain Resnais released Mon Oncle d'Amérique. One of its characters is professor Henri Laborit, a French philosopher and behavioural biologist who develops theories on the relationship between the individual and society. In the film, he utters the phrase "Nous ne sommes que les autres" (We are nothing but the others), referring to the famous quote "Je est un autre" (I is another) by the French poet Rimbaud. This phrase struck a personal cord with Mekhitar Garabedian. As a descendant of Armenian migrants who eventually ended up in Belgium via the Ottoman Empire/Turkey, Lebanon and Syria, he − like the character Laborit − is fascinated by the way the Self is formed.

In his own handwriting and in neon, Garabedian recreates the phrase. With this gesture, he refers to how we learn a language: by copying, transcribing and repeating. His handwriting determines the form of the artwork and underlines his personal stake in the meaning of the sentence. After all, understanding or becoming yourself always happens in relation to others.