À la recherche de Monsieur Tan
My book ‘À la Recherche de Monsieur Tan’, depicts my search for a man who once lived in my neighbourhood in Marseille. Monsieur Tan came to France in the late 1970s to escape the Khmer Rouge. Finally allowed to remain, he began running an old backstreet garage. In his seventies and still working, he would reflect upon life as he fixed Vespas, sat on a stool he had built himself. He lived his life quietly but with care and sincerity. One day, Monsieur Tan closed the garage, and disappeared.
Examining the possibilities of a life, I start out in France. My search leads me to Cambodia in search of Monsieur Tan’s son and to connect a place to some of his memories. In Thailand remains of old refugee camps serve as a reminder of a harsh reality. With this project, I aim to gain understanding and am performing a process of closure. Monsieur Tan’s fate remains ambiguous as I grapple with the problematics of privacy and authorship.