La peau du prénom

La peau du prénom – “‘I don’t have a first name’ was the dizzying realization I made one day. Or rather, I’d run out. The old one was like an ugly old sweater, a family gift that we were forced to wear. It was old-fashioned, too big, too small, too tight, suffocating. Too feminine. A name is gendered, a name tells a story, a name can be changed. Change it. Yes, but which one? How do you choose? Five names follow one another, like past, potential, attributed or appropriated identities.

“La peau du prénom” is the story of my obsessive pursuit of a new first name, an essential step in my journey and my social transition. It is the witness of a questioning of gender, which in a plural and eclectic form, tells a non-binary queer journey. An intimate and sensitive story, a coming out, a plunge between genders, inviting everyone to question this social construction…”

Originally from Tours in France, Lyoz Bandie (1994) studied law there for several years before moving to Belgium to study art.

He graduated magna cum laude from the École supérieure des Arts Saint-Luc de Liège in 2021, and on the occasion of his jury, published a self-published first draft of his book, a testament to his quest for his new first name. As a young queer photographer, Lyoz questions gender in an eclectic, multidisciplinary way. A sensitive search for new freedoms…