Boîte Noire
France
2026
When her father is evicted from his flat, Manon Tagand saves what she considers important: cameras, thousands of prints and negatives, film reels and a few vinyl records. Her father dies a few months later as a result of his alcoholism, taking with him the answers to her questions. Who was her grandfather? What role did he play in Cameroon during the 1950s? Why were there so many tragedies? She decides to investigate and travels across France in search of the family she never knew.
Boîte Noire [Black box] is a multifaceted, visual and audio project, a long-term road trip, quest for identity, treasure hunt, documentary and genealogical investigation between France and Cameroon, with a decolonial approach.
This first chapter presents the research carried out between 2023 and 2025. The project is supported by the DRAC Centre-Val de-Loire and the Ministère de la Culture.
Portfolio
About the artist
Born in France in 1997, Manon Tagand is a visual artist. She first studied scenography at the École Boulle (Paris), then sculpture at the Beaux-Arts in Brussels. Photography has been a part of her life since childhood and remains at the heart of her practice. Her work explores intimacy, addressing the relationship with the body, memory, trauma and the transcendence that emerges from it.