Os Encantados
Romane Iskaria
Nominated by
FOMU
Os Encantados is a documentary project by Romane Iskaria, dedicated to the quilombola communities of Northeastern Brazil and their ancestral bond with the Land of Jurema — a sacred space at the threshold between the visible and the invisible. Born out of resistance to colonial slavery, the quilombos embody forms of cultural, spiritual, and political autonomy. To this day, these communities continue to fight for their territorial rights in a context still deeply shaped by the legacy of colonialism.
At the heart of this culture lies the Jurema Sagrada (Sacred Jurema), a spiritual tradition born from the fusion of Indigenous and African belief systems. It is closely linked to the jurema plant (Mimosa Hostilis), known for its ritual and therapeutic properties. This plant is also associated with the Encantados — nature spirits who have become protective figures and spiritual guides, present in several Afro-Brazilian religions. These entities embody a living memory and a profound connection to the land.
The Land of Jurema, as described by writer Sandro Guimarães de Salles, is an immaterial territory where a dialogue between the living and the spirits continues through sacred, invisible places scattered across the landscape. It serves as a foundation of identity and resistance for the quilombola communities.
Romane Iskaria approaches this territory in the manner of an anthropologist, combining documentary investigation with a sensitive, immersive perspective. Her gaze captures the faces, gestures, landscapes, and objects that shape the daily and spiritual life of the inhabitants. Aware of her position as a white foreign woman, she reflects on her role through an aesthetic of relationship, where the use of mirrors becomes a symbolic tool for reciprocity and connection.
Rooted in a personal attachment to the region of Paraíba, where Romane’s father lives, this project blends photography, oral storytelling, and historical-anthropological research. Os Encantados seeks to celebrate a living heritage, challenge dominant narratives about Brazilian identity, and honor the memory and resistance of those who inhabit, protect, and dream the Land of Jurema. It bears witness to a world where culture, spirituality, and land are inseparable, a world both enchanted and real.
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The Artist
Romane Iskaria
Nominated in
2024
By
FOMU
Lives and Works in
Brussels Belgium
Romane Iskaria is a French photographer and artist based in Brussels, Belgium (1997). The photographer highlights the injustices and inequalities of invisible communities with a documentary and fictional approach. Her images, specific to “Care”, tell a story and allow her subjects to become aware of their painful stories. She creates a connection with these subjects that goes beyond the simple link between the photographer and her model.
The artist uses photography and the field of video, but also textiles, sound, and sculpture to create immersive installations. She tells stories that take the form of a long-term investigation across several territories. Romane replays specific rituals and stories that also transcend borders, addressing questions around migration and exile. The photographer creates plastic forms allowing her to subvert the codes of documentary.
She graduated with a Master's degree in photography from ENSAV La Cambre in 2022 and a DNA (National Diploma in Plastic Arts) from INSEAAM Beaux Arts in Marseille in 2018. She also completed an exchange at the U-LAVAL Visual Arts school in Quebec, Canada. Romane is laureate of TIFF 2024 Emerging Belgian Photography, by FOMU Fotomuseum Antwerpen and the european platform FUTURES Photography. Her work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions: in the United States (ART-ARK Gallery in San Jose, California; Assyrian Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.), in Brazil (João Pessoa Paraíba Nordeste Art Gallery of the Energisa Institute), in France (Circulation(s) Cent-Quatre Festival in Paris, Lille Art-Up Centre Photographique in Lille, La Grande Vitrine Gallery in Arles, HLM Gallery in Marseille), in Belgium (FOMU Fotomuseum Antwerp, S.M.A.K Museum in Ghent, House of European History Brussels, TAMAT Museum in Tournai, BPS22, Art-Brussels Off, Prix Médiatine, Hangar Art Photo Center, TICK-TACK Gallery, Tiny-Gallery, Fondation Carrefour des Arts), in Armenia (French Consulate in Yerevan), in Italy (L’Asilo in Naples), and in the Netherlands (Flemish Cultural Center). Brakke-grond, Noorderlicht Festival). Romane was selected as part of the call for projects launched by Polka Magazine and Kickstarter for the creation and support of an artist's book, with the self-publishing of her first work, "Assyrians," in a print run of 300 copies in 2022. The book "Assyrians" was also a winner of the Belgian Photo Books selection, presented at the Rencontres d'Arles in July 2022.
More projects by this artist
2022
Assyrians
Romane collected testimonies from members of the Assyrian community between Belgium and France, complementing the stories of her own grandfather and the notebooks of her great-grandfather who arrived in France from Iran. The photographer conducted an investigation by gathering the stories of this diaspora composed of different generations. Objects transported during exile, family photos, traditional outfits for festivals, figurines of protective figures from ancient Mesopotamia, landscapes, and maps appear. By blending past and present, Romane photographs by intuition and also uses fiction to evoke this quest for origins present in each of us. A project to keep a memory, a trace. To portray a scattered people trying to preserve their connections despite the distance. The members of the community fled their countries: Syria, Turkey, Iraq, Iran. What traces? What memories do they keep of their lands? How to rebuild elsewhere? Are they assimilated in the country where they are? How to perpetuate their culture and language: Aramaic? A collective memory is created through these voices that tell her. Romane then went to the Tur Abdin region in Turkey on the border with Syria. If this community had a country it would be in this territory between Syria, Turkey and Iran.Cradle of the Assyrian community. The photographer followed a group of young French and Belgian people to return to their roots for the first time in the land of their ancestors. Throughout the villages she met people who came to rebuild their houses. Between myth and return to basics, the photographer creates a symbolic territory through this people in search of landmarks. What are these links that provide a feeling of belonging to spaces and communities? Do countries really own the territories they inhabit? What other territories are possible?
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