Christelle Oyiri – I SEE YOU, 2024

In the shadow economy of the illicit drug trade, the chouf – Arabic for “see” or “look” – watches for police and warns others while remaining unseen. In I SEE YOU, filmed at the Cité des Fauvettes, a banlieue outside Paris, Christelle Oyiri portrays the chouf as a skilled observer whose judgement is essential to the trade. By reading the street and locating gaps in surveillance, choufs help govern when people and goods can move. Their knowledge grants them a measure of power within an economy whose profits and control are unevenly distributed. It also shapes their relation to visibility. In the banlieues, where surveillance conditions movement through public space, those who are watched watch back. The ability to see without being seen turns this enforced vigilance into a form of counter-surveillance, giving choufs a measure of agency within conditions in which visibility itself carries risk.

Christelle Oyiri explores narratives and movements that have emerged beyond dominant canons, as well as the ways in which contemporary cultures and mythologies are shaped by media. Through the exploration of invisibilised histories and concealed narratives, she develops a multidisciplinary practice that investigates forms of agency and resistance, bringing forth new symbolic embodiments.