Romane Iskaria (born in 1997) is a French photographer and artist based in Brussels, Belgium. Of Assyrian and Italian descent. She holds a Master’s degree with mention in Photography and visual arts of space from ENSAV La Cambre (Brussels, 2022) and a DNAP with distinction (National Diploma of Fine Arts) from INSEAM Beaux-Arts of Marseille (2018). She also studied at the School of Visual Arts at Laval University in Quebec, Canada.
Her work explores the struggles of marginalized communities facing the loss of their territories. Positioned between documentary and fiction, her practice unfolds through sensitive, often immersive narratives that address themes of memory, exile, and transmission. She develops longterm projects across Brazil, the Middle East, and Europe. Her images, rooted in a practice of care, create space for subjects to reclaim and reflect upon their painful histories. By reenacting rituals or intimate stories, she questions borders – geographical, cultural, and symbolic – and subverts traditional documentary codes to allow new, poetic visual forms to emerge.
For several years, Romane has been conducting an artistic and documentary investigation into the Assyrian community, focusing particularly on Belgium, France, and the Tur Abdin region in southeastern Turkey. Coming from an Assyrian lineage herself—through her great-grandfather who migrated from Iran to France—she gathers intergenerational narratives that intertwine diaspora testimonies with family archives, including the notebooks of her great-grandfather. This project led to her her first book self-published, Assyrians, in a limited edition of 300 copies in 2022. The book was supported through a successful crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter and was selected by POLKA Magazine, with a new edition planned for 2026–2027.
Romane was awarded the TIFF 2024 Emerging Belgian Photography Award, presented by FOMU Fotomuseum Antwerp in partnership with the European platform FUTURES Photography. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including in the United States (Assyrian National Convention in Anaheim, ART-ARK Gallery in California, Assyrian Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.), in Brazil (Energisa Institute Gallery, João Pessoa, Paraíba), in France (Circulation(s) Festival at Centquatre-Paris, Lille Art-Up at the Centre Photographique, La Grande Vitrine in Arles, Galerie HLM in Marseille), in Belgium (FOMU Fotomuseum Antwerp, S.M.A.K Museum in Ghent, House of European History in Brussels, TAMAT Museum in Tournai, BPS22, Art-Brussels Off, Médiatine Prize, Hangar 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 De Brakke Grond, Noorderlicht Festival)
Website: www.romaneiskaria.com
Instagram: @romane.iskaria
