When I met Philipe and fell in love with him, he was staying illegally in Switzerland.

He had applied for asylum but been refused. From the very beginning of our relationship, we had a conflict over photography. I thought he was very handsome and had a strong need, as a photographer, to photograph him. He, in turn, wanted total control over any pictures taken of him because of his insecure living situation. He was also not in tune with how people in his culture were shown in photographs.

I travelled a lot during that time. He could not go with me as he had no papers. When I travelled, we made video calls; I started taking screenshots of our conversations in secret so I would have some pictures of him to keep for myself.

A few months into our relationship, we decided to get married so we could have an orderly life together. It was a long and complicated process lasting over two years as the authorities did not believe in our love because he was in the country illegally and needed papers.
Marrying me would give him a residence and work permit.

During the process, we were asked by the Migration Board to present photo evidence that we were a loving couple. Suddenly, my secretly taken photos had an important purpose.

What interests me in the project is that photography is still considered usable as evidence material by a government agency. The work also highlights how, for historical reasons, my partner and I have a totally different relationship with photography: myself as a middle-class woman raised in Europe and my partner as an immigrant from a formerly colonised country with a violent and oppressive history.

The series consists of 726 screenshots taken by me with my iPhone. I started taking the photos quite soon after we got to know each other and ended on our wedding day more than two years later.