The Fondation Cartier (in Paris) is putting up an interesting exhibition later this month, curated by photographer /filmmaker Raymond Depardon and philosopher Paul Virilio. The title is Native Land Stop Eject or Terre Natale in French.

In a videoclip, Paul Virilio summarizes the main themes of the exhibit:

‘ Our identity is our place of birth. It’s where we first appeared where we came into the world. In days gone by when a baby was born on a train, they’d stop the train to make sure the child had a place of birth. Identity risks to be replaced with traceability. Identity is localized. It has an origin, a local origin. Native soil. And it is indispensable to being enrolled in any citizenry. Now with the technologies of traceability, we do no longer need an identity since we have our past that is all our trajectories, our whole trajectography. A person is now his trajectory, no longer his place of birth.