URBANAUTICA

BY KARL KETAMO

1. Tell us about your approach to photography. How did it all started? What are your first me mories of your first shots?

I had some kind of obsession with storytelling and recording things when I was growing up – even as I was experiencing things, I was already narrating them in my head. I’ve always kept a written journal, even if sporadically, and I guess taking photographs started as another kind of diary. (But it was more about making sense of things for myself, all these options to instantly record and share life didn’t exist. How crazy to remember life before Internet!)

As a teenager I took a lot of photographs of my friends, squats where I spent much of my time, long walks across Helsinki and long train journeys across Europe. I mostly wanted to record certain moods and moments. In high school I took some photography courses and started working in the darkroom. The first assignment was to take a series of photographs inspired by a poem. I climbed into an abandoned industrial building with my friend and photographed her on the rooftop.

After school I did a one year photography course in a town that was so small there wasn't much else to do than work in the darkroom until your head was spinning. The photographs I did there were black-and-white, slightly surrealistic self-portraits – something completely different from what I am photographing now.

© Laura Böök from the series ‘Walking on Rivers’

2. How did your research evolve with respect to those early days?

There was no research involved when I first started taking photographs because it was all spontaneous and intuitive, not about working on a project, building a coherent series or even trying to communicate something to others. That spontaneity can be difficult to find now.

3. Can you tell us a bit about your educational background? What are some of your best memories of your studies and what was your relationship with photography at that time?

I studied a BA in Documentary Photography at the University of South Wales (Still called University of Wales, Newport when I started there) and graduated quite recently, in the summer of 2014. The most important change since I started studying is probably that working on a photography project doesn’t mean to simply go and hang around somewhere and wait for things to happen. Even though coincidence is still an important part of my work.

4. What made you decide to go to Newport? Could you tell a bit about what the focus is upon within your study?

I wanted to study at Newport because it felt like a school where you learn to think about what subjects’ interest you as a photographer and take time to work on personal projects.

There’s a lot of freedom for finding your own voice as a photographer, whether it’s a traditional journalistic approach or a more conceptual one. I would say the focus is on projects that have a documentary base and deal with contemporary society, but also explore new ways to communicate visually and push the boundaries of documentary photography.

Those influences have been important. Another important thing was to start working with people and communities on a more long term base, and realize that making personal connections and working with people comes quite naturally to me.

© Laura Böök from the series ‘Walking on Rivers’

5. This connection with the people really shows in your images. On ‘Walking on Rivers’ it’s seemingly easy to notice that you get close to the people and they feel comfortable with you.

For me one of the most meaningful parts of working as a photographer has been to be able to spend time with people and share some moments of their lives. There are a lot of moments and conversations that are not there in the photographs but they are just as important.

6. What do you think about photography in the era of digital and social networking?

On some days I want to get a consultant to teach me all about self promotion and fancy websites, and on other days I want to close my account on every social media.

The best thing about ”photography in the era of digital and social networking” is that it opens up so many new possibilities. Although a maze Internet provides platform for projects, photographers and audiences.

7. Hah that sound’s really familiar. It’s probably something that many photographers share. OK, continue with your work. Can you describe your personal research?

The most powerful projects for me are ones that have a very personal aspect but also speak about wider questions in society, contemporary culture or politics. This is also reflected in the research. I try to read a lot about and around the subject, and also see what other photographers or visual artists have worked on related to the theme. But there also needs to be some more personal connection to a story – often the idea for a project starts from a sentence I read or hear, some slightly absurd or poetic detail that gets stuck in my head for a long time, or a personal encounter with someone. Once I’ve started a project, what makes me continue is a curiosity to understand more about the people I'm photographing and their experiences. I’ve also studied sociology and that background influences the kind of subjects I choose. Or maybe the same interests that led me to study sociology also led me to study documentary photography.

© Laura Böök from the series ‘The Freedom Theatre’

For an example I’ve worked on several projects related to migration and experiences of refugees. I visited the first closed detention center for migrants in Finland in 2002 when it first ”opened” and then again a couple of years later, together with a group of migrant activists. In the meantime, the detention center had moved from a former prison to a purpose built facility and the director had learned to speak casually, without flinching, about suicide attempts as a part of reality at the detention center. Those two short visits showed very clearly the institutional violence that is present just under the surface of our calm and
functioning society, and that made a more lasting impact than any academic books about migration. So having a personal connection to a story doesn’t mean that it has to be about me, but it has to start from something that touches me on an emotional and direct level as well as an intellectual level. That’s hopefully what photography can do in general and what makes it powerful.

8. Like you say some of these realities behind your stories are very dark. Outside your work do you find it difficult to deal with these matters yourself? Do you get emotionally attached to your subjects and do you think that it should or does reflect from your work?

It can be difficult but you can’t ignore the world either. I’m fortunate because I’ve always been surrounded by people who are working on the same issues - whether as photographers, journalists, researchers or activists or any combination of those. Without their knowledge and experience and support most of my projects probably wouldn’t exist or would look very different.
And yes, I do get emotionally attached, but it’s difficult to know if it’s reflected in the work. Maybe other people can answer that better? In general I think it does show if people invest time and effort in a project, or if not. With some of my best photographs I can remember the moment well: what was said, how was the mood. But I haven’t tried to make people forget I am there or have a camera. The portraits are a mix of chance/spontaneity, staging or posing,
my ideas of how the portrait should look like and also the idea the person I am
photographing has about how to look in front of the camera.

Of course there’s also a lot of pictures that need to be left out of the edit because it’s only about the moment or story behind the pictures, but it doesn’t come across in the photograph.

© Laura Böök from the series ‘Walking on Rivers’

9. What is your relationship towards the camera itself?

For me personally or the work I am doing at the moment, the camera, format or film vs digital question doesn’t feel like the most important thing. If anything, the strategy is that there is no complicated strategy – all or nearly all of the Walking on Rivers series is photographed using the same 50 mm lens.
Of course I can appreciate other people’s work where the format or camera is an important part. And of course film is nice, but I’m not as fussed about it as some other photographers.

10. Tell us about your latest project ‘Walking on Rivers’?

My latest project is called ‘Walking on Rivers’. I’ve been photographing for nearly two years now in a small town in Northern Finland called Pudasjärvi, focusing on six Congolese families who have resettled there after spending fifteen years in refugee camps.

Pudasjärvi is a shrinking town. Nearly half of the population has moved out since the 1960’s, and the town now has around 8500 residents.
Unlike most small towns in Finland, Pudasjärvi has an open attitude to immigration and at some point the local council set a goal that in 2018, one of ten residents would have an immigrant background – quite a high number in Finland. However, during the time I've worked on the project, three of the Congolese families I’ve photographed have already moved away to bigger cities.

I’m from Helsinki and I didn’t have any relation to Pudasjärvi before the project. I had never heard of the town until I visited on an assignment (for daily newspaper Hufvudstadsbladet where I worked in summer 2012.) There was, and is, a lot of discussion going on about migration policies and about racism in the Finnish society. Many people still have the idea that to be Finnish, to belong here, you need to be white and have grandparents born in Finland, but that’s being challenged more and more.

This ongoing debate was one motivation to start the project, but the photography also gave an opportunity to explore small-town life and how it’s changing.

© Laura Böök from the series ‘Walking on Rivers’

11. Do you see this as more as a story of Finland or do you see connections to a broader theme?

There are definitely connections: to the situation in Europe in general, other stories about migration, other small places that struggle with being somehow left behind in an urbanized society. And maybe more universal human themes about home, where it can be found, whether it’s just in one place.
At the same time it was an important starting point that it’s a story about Finland and I hadn’t seen it photographed before.

12. Do you have further development plans for the project? Are you still continuing with it and where would like to go with it?

When I started the project I thought the story would be interesting mainly in Finland. It has been a surprise, but a very positive one, that until now the project has been shown more outside Finland, at a few festivals and group exhibitions. Now I am living in Finland again and working on getting the series exhibited also there.

From the beginning I thought it’s a story that works best as a book and that’s still what I am hoping and working on. I have also been recording interviews with different people I’ve photographed and I would like to include more direct comments and experiences from them.

© Laura Böök from the series ‘Walking on Rivers’

13. How about influences - Can you name some artists that have influences in someway?

It’s difficult to name one influence but I’ll mention a few photographers or projects that have inspired me. I’m very inspired by the work of Susan Meiselas, and the respect and long term commitment she has for her subjects. She is raising important questions about the ethics of documentarism and representation, and also about how to expand documentary storytelling.
I like Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin’s book ‘Ghetto’, and how they have used the same set of questions as a starting point to examine different kinds of closed or gated communities around the world. There is a matter-of-factness to both the text and images that keeps a cool distance but also cuts straight to the core.

Another favourite, completely opposite in style, is Alessanda Sanguinetti’s ‘The Adventures of Guille and Belinda’. It’s a very intimate, playful, beautiful project about two cousins, their immediate surroundings and imaginary worlds. I saw the work in an exhibition over ten years ago and went back to the series many times. In those photographs Guille and Belinda are around 10 or 12 years old. I didn’t know until recently that Sanguinetti was still photographing them now that they are adults, and coming across the more recent photographs felt almost like reconnecting with old friends.

14. What are some of the latest show’s you’ve seen that really had an impact on you?

I still have some kind of obsession with storytelling and I have been thinking a lot about how to tell stories through photography, or why to use photography, and whether still images can ever be as powerful as film or literature. So the shows that have been most inspiring recently have been focusing on new forms of narrative photography. During a visit to Amsterdam I saw the Stedelijk Museum’s exhibition ‘On the Move: Storytelling in Contemporary Photography and Graphic Design’, which included both old and new favourites.

Last week I went on a small gallery tour in Helsinki and saw (a) life by Mari Mäkiö, a show that’s currently in photographic gallery Hippolyte. The exhibition creates a fictional life story of a man who had died alone and left behind a box of photographs that the photographer somehow came across. What made
it interesting is that the photographer collaborated with people including fiction writers and private detectives to build up the narrative. I think there was only one photograph taken by Mäkiö herself (a picture of the shoe box containing the archival photos) but the whole exhibition is about the role photography plays in our culture, to create memories and identities.

© Laura Böök from the series ‘The Freedom Theatre’

15. What do your plans for the future consist of? Is there already a new project that you are working on?

Besides being busy with editing and going further with Walking on Rivers
I’ve been working on another long term project documenting a theatre school in Palestine, and I’m going back soon for a few weeks – maybe to continue with that project, or maybe something else.

I have some other plans and projects underway that will hopefully be more clear in the next few months. Meanwhile I’m trying to stay inspired, read a lot, and slowly coming up with ideas for a new long-term project. I love the sea even more than I love photography so the next project I have in mind is about different islands ”at the edge of the world”, both in Finland and far away, and different ideas about paradise.

‘Alphabet’ a book by Ezio D’Agostino
BY FRANCESCA ORSI

The book ‘Alphabet’ is not just content, it is also a method, precise and well-designed to show its contents. Nearly a scientific method. An alphabetical sorting of 26 images, an archaeological analysis of a collective experience in which everything is rhythmically cadenced. A structure, that of Les Halles in Paris - shopping center built in 1979 on the ruins of the former general markets - now under reconstruction to adapt to a contemporary vision, and other aesthetic and practical criterions.

Ezio d'Agostino immortalizes the remains of this building, what is left, and classifies them in a book / archive. The romantic and evocative flavor of memory, and the versatility of a survey aimed at revealing any porosity of the past, blend harmoniously.

As in the trunk of a cut tree, the rings that appear engraved on the inside speak of its longevity. Layers that have given strength, and added material to its bark. And maybe for centuries they have covered what was underneath without deleting it. Only by means of a transverse eye, capable of penetrating the time in its horizontality, the individual pieces that make up the whole can rise to the surface. And so did Ezio D'Agostino with the details of this past, once lived and loved, and now obsolete in this present.

INFO:
First Edition
250 copies
23.7 cm x 32.0 cm
56 pages
Bodonian Hardback – Handstamped
Translucent colored inserts
Offset printed on GardaMatt Art

August Sander / Michael Somoroff: Absence of Subject
BY DIANA EDKINS

Michael Somoroff’s ‘Absence of Subject’ is a poignant homage to the legendary photographer August Sander’s monumental work ‘People of the 20th Century’ (Menschen des 20 Jarhunderts). It is a thoughtful and passionate meditation on memory, imagination, human resilience and creativity.

The originality in this body of work is based on Somoroff’s keen sense of observation and interpretation. Absence of Subject lets you revisit August Sander’s work allowing you to understand the richness of Sander’s intent. In each of August Sander’s pictures Michael Somoroff has erased the subject retaining only the background. The unprecedented digital revolution has brought the potential for manipulation into focus. Through the use of software Somoroff has taken out what we have always believed to be the “essential element” – the subject, the portrait. The backgrounds once a secondary fragment now become the primary motivator. They have now been translated into new fully conceived images that rightfully belong to the “post-modern” idiom.

The exhibition Absence of Subject is a perfect example of a delicate balance of alchemy and inquiry. Conceptually and humanistically oriented each of Somoroff’s images demonstrates the persuasive power and aesthetic of August Sander’s oeuvre even without the human subject. This is not photography as we are accustomed to but more about the idea of creativity. The images embrace chance and acceptance. What Somoroff celebrates is to establish that post-modern art isn’t dislocated, but something with roots, tradition and continuity.

INFO:

The exhibition at Villa Vauban, Luxembourg City Art Museum is curated by Diana Edkins and Julian Sander and organized by Admira, Milan in collaboration with Feroz Gallery, Bonn. It is part of the European month of photography 2015. The exhibition runs from 24.04.2015 to 13.09.2015

PHOTO CREDITS:

Circus Workers, 1926-1932
© Die Photographische Sammlung/SK-Stiftung Kultur – August Sander Archiv, Koln – VG-Bild Kunst, Bonn, 2011 Circus Workers, 2007
© Michael Somoroff

Farmer’s Child, 1919
© Die Photographische Sammlung/SK-Stiftung Kultur – August Sander Archiv, Koln – VG-Bild Kunst, Bonn, 2011 Farmer’s Child, 2007
© Michael Somoroff

Soldier, c.1940, August Sander
© Die Photographische Sammlung/SK-Stiftung Kultur – August Sander Archiv, Koln – VG-Bild Kunst, Bonn, 2011 Soldier, 2007
© Michael Somoroff

LINKS:

Luxembourg City Art Museum | Admira | Michael Somoroff

BY SYLVIA SOUFFRIAU

1. Tell us about your background, in which way is it related to photography?

I studied design in Russia (Perm State Technical University). Among the subjects of the third year of my study was photography. It was 2001, no one from us had a digital camera yet, so we learned analog photography only. We were taught all the basic processes of the dark room, made a lot of portraits of classmates and shoot a mass of Russian winter landscapes. My passion to photography started at that time. Before that course I had absolutely no inter-est in photography, even when I visited photo exhibitions I felt kind of puzzled “Is it really art?”. From my childhood I was deeply involved in academic painting and drawing because I visited children art school, so photography seemed to me as something which is “too easy” and has very small value. So, I must say, after the course at the university my attitude to photography have changed dramatically!

© Natalya Reznik from the series ‘Needful Things’, 2010

2. Any professor or teacher that allowed you to understand your work better?

In 2005 I took part in the course by two Bulgarian photographers - Boris Missirkov and Georgy Bogdanov (it was organized by the foundation “Peterburgskie fotomasterskie” in Saint-Petersburg, Russia). Their course “Portrait-interview” influenced me the most. It was my first experience of working with contemporary portrait and I learned from it a lot. A part of the seminar was a kind of psychological training during which our group of students approached strangers in the park, learned how to communicate with them, how “to force” them to narrate something about their life and how to immediately reflect the information in a photograph in a conceptual way. All of these stages took us only 10-15 minutes per person. It was really a challenge, but at the end we got great results and exhibited the collective project consisted of portraits and details narrating the stories.

3. In your Phd at University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany, you’re doing research in the domain of the theory and history of photography, can you combine this with your work as an artist? Is it co-related to your personal work?

Yes, I chose the topic ‘Aging in photography - forms of representations’ because it is co-related with one of my personal themes in photography - aging. I’ve been exploring this topic for a long time. I’ve become interested in it since my childhood, because I’ve grown up with my grandparents. They were already in their late 70’s and I saw how they suffer from illnesses and hopelessness, it was 90’s in Russia, the time after the collapse of Soviet Union, very hard time. Moreover, I was operated in my childhood and hardly survived. After that it was almost forbidden for me to jump, run and play with other children. I stayed at home all the time with my grandparents, read, painted and heard what my granny narrated about their not easy life… Probably, it influenced what I do in my art work and what I chose to investigate in my dissertation. The topic is very close to me.

© Natalya Reznik from the series ‘Aging’, 2011

4. Can you tell us about your motives and intentions to use the medium photography in your work? How would you define your approach to photography?

I mentioned that I was graduated from children art school and trained as a designer at university. I must say that the education there was very traditional (the quality of learning was high, but we had almost no freedom as artists, it was very strict academic education). As students we were forced to follow these strict rules and sometimes I even feel pity about the education I got - I still can not force myself to break the rules I learned. Maybe, I am lucky that I got no systematical education in photography - my gaze and hand were not “formed” and “standardized” this way and I feel free for experiments. I visited a lot of different courses and workshops in photography in Russia and abroad and came away with something from each of them. The most important thing to me is that I can stay myself.
I would define my approach to photography as “magical realism”. I like to work on documentary basis, but usually I add another layer to reality - the layer of “desire”, or the layer of “dream”, or “memory”. In such a way the reality turns into a kind of “changed reality”, fantastic reality. And the documentary project becomes conceptual.

© Natalya Reznik from the series ‘Secrets’, 2012

5. What inspires you the most? Are there any documentaries, (photography) books or films you would recommend?

At the moment I am very inspired by the portraits made by early Netherland painters. As for cinema, I like movies by Russian filmmaker Andrey Tarkovsky. I prefer to read mythology and fairytales from different countries. Probably, it inspires me to construct my own “worlds”.

6. Is there any contemporary artist or photographer, even young and emerging, that influenced you in some way? Is there any show you’ve seen recently that you find inspiring?

I like portraits by Helen van Meene, Rineke Dijekstra, Lidia Panas, Laura Pannack with their subtleties and vulnerability. I love Nan Goldin’s works and the intimacy she introduced into photography. I don’t know why are there women only in my appreciation list. Probably, my gaze is very female. And I also like mystifications made by conceptual photographers such as Jean Fontkuberta and Christina de Middel.

© Natalya Reznik from the series ‘Secrets’, 2012

7. What do you think about photography in the era of digital and social networks? How do you see photography evolve further?

Nowadays there are a lot of momentary trends in photography, they spread over the photo-graphic world very soon. Sometimes, it can be compared with epidemic. We all influence each other’s way of seeing. I don’t know it is good or bad news, but today it is not avoidable.

8. Has the internet a big influence in the way you experience your identity as an artist?

I wouldn’t tell that the Internet has special influence on me, but of course my gaze is also affected by what I look at. Actually, if you want to be seen and understood you need to speak contemporary language, you have no other choice. I must say, the Internet plays important role in my relationships with Russian colleagues while I am in Germany - for instance, from Fotodepartment Foundation (Saint-Petersburg). I took part in some online courses led by Nadya Sheremetova and last year I taught myself three online courses for Russian photographers at the same foundation: “How to write about photography?” for art critics and for photographers and course “Photography and Time” which was already covered by Urbanautica. So, Internet helps us to build the connections, to stay in touch and to share the ideas and experience. From this point of view it is really great.

9. How would you describe the contemporary photography identity of Germany?

I see myself more in international context, so I am not sure if I can say something new about German photographic identity. For me German photography is still Dusseldorf school of photography and New Objectivity. In Berlin there is a great art scene, but I also perceive it as international, not the German one.

10. Your projects ‘Secrets’, ‘The stolen archive of Otto Steiner’ and ‘Looking for my father’ are specific related to the past. Is it important to know ones own past? Do you think man can exist without his/her history?

Regarding to the question of the past, I really like this quote: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past”. (William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun). I think as far as we are alive, our past is not just the past. Our thoughts, our attitude to life are always affected by important previous events - especially happened in our childhood (or maybe even before our birth).
The question about history is crucial for Russia. During XX century our traditions were extirpated two times - after the Russian Revolution in 1917 and after the Collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. My compatriots were twice deprived of their habits and memory, so, today we end up with a kind of strange mix of pre-revolutionary traditions, Soviet culture and Western tendencies, which came to Russia in 90’s. It is worth to mention, that I’ve been living in Germany (Bavaria) since 2011 and the admiration of their own traditions and history by locals is really amazing. They love to wear their traditional clothes, it can be purchased everywhere (and is produced even by top fashion brands such as Escada), admire their traditional food, music, holidays… I am kind of jealous about it, because we, Russians, partly lost this respect to our traditions. Actually, we have been thought to hate our traditions and our past, old ideologies and values were destroyed and history was rewritten several times. It is really hard when you have almost nothing to love, save in your soul and transmit to your children. It is our collective trauma. I think that is partly the reason why the new generation of Russian photographers so often refer to the topic of history (in personal and political level). We need to find something to love, to believe in, and mourn about.

© Natalya Reznik from the series ‘Looking for my father’, 2013

11. In your work ‘Memory code’ you’re playing with the idea that personal memory becomes public. Do you think it is important that personal memory becomes part of a collective digital memory?

I’ve always been considering it as something very important - to save remembrances of elder-ly people. For instance, I used to record the stories narrated by my granny about her life. It always seemed to me really awful that a huge part of memory is going to vanish in nowhere with the departure of its owner. I admire the utopian idea of storing personal memory after the departure of the person and uploading it to Internet. So, in such a case the person would not disappear forever. The project “Memory Code” is a small step in this direction, I try to examine how our memory could exist and be transmitted in digital format. Here I propose the spectator to wonder what could we do with our personal memory about close relatives who passed away.
QR-code which links to a portrait of a passed away close relative and a small story about him/her – is a code of valuable personal memory, which one can share with somebody. Per-sonal memory, while resisting a loss, becomes a part of the collective digital memory.

12. Do you think that digitalization of memory has a profound impact on the way we con-struct images of the past?

This question is somehow related to my project ‘Looking for my father’, in which I create new memory for myself with the help of digital technologies. It was already covered by Urbanautica. This project is very personal, somewhere in-between documentary and fiction, where the dreams of my mother are real, but the memory, I created for myself based on them, is fictional. Of course, the digitalization of our memory gives the opportunity to reconstruct the past and even to create the new ‘desired’ past. It is interesting phenomenon and I think I am going to explore it more in future projects. By the way, now I am working on the photo book ‘Looking for my father’ with great graphic designer from Saint-Petersburg (Russia) Julia Borissova and I hope the book appears in print this year.

© Natalya Reznik from the series ‘Looking for my father’, 2013

13. In your project ‘The stolen archive of Otto Steiner’ you choose the medium drawing to reconstruct the lost archive, was there a specific reason to use this medium?

It is the only project in which I come back to my already forgotten skill of drawing! My goal was to recreate the photographic archive of the Swiss photographer Otto Steiner who came to USSR in 30’s after the Russian Revolution and took a lot of photos of unofficial ordinary life, whose negatives and photos were then mysteriously disappeared. His daughter, who was a kid when she and her family traveled to Russia, narrated this story in the video interview which became a part of the project. According to her descriptions I recreated the lost photo-graphic archive in drawings. Here the topic of personal memory gets a political dimension and the lost photographs recreated in drawings enter into the space of mystification.

Exhibition Hourra, L'Oural! National Centre of contemporary arts (Ural Branch), Yekaterinburg. Photo by Alexey Ponomarchuk

14. Are there any projects that you are working on at the moment and can you tell us about your plans for the future?

So, I already mentioned that I am working on my photo book called ‘Looking for my father’. It is going to be my second photo book (the first one ‘Secrets’ was published in 2014 and was presented in Berlin last December). There is a great review of the book written by Steve Bisson and published at Urbanautica. In my future projects I am open for exploration of the topic memory from another points of view. Probably, this time it will be approached from an art historical perspective, which could allow me to combine the photographic practice with my theoretical research at the university.

BY IRITH GUBI

1. Tell us about your approach to photography. How it all started? What are your memories of your first shots?

I bought my first camera, when I was in high school. It was a small point-and-shoot digital canon. In those days, I was kind of a computer geek. I preferred
to stay in a dark room lit only by my many computer screens.
I still don’t know why I quickly became obsessed with taking photos of
everything (flowers, sunsets, cats etc.). My new found hobby dragged me out
of my comfort zone and pushed me into completely new territories. I think that
photography has changed my general approach to life, helped to develop my
sense of curiosity, intuition and appreciation for taking risky and at times,
non-conformal decisions.

2. How did your research evolve with respect to those early days?

Since this time, my relationship with photography has changed many times,
especially since being exposed to the academic setting. I feel that today, with
all of the knowledge and tools that I’ve gained along the way, I’m
photographing from a more authentic, slightly childish, and almost naive
perspective.

Usually, I dive into projects unaware of my underlying motives. Only later,
comes a point where I am able to tie all the edges together on the axes of my
personal history and conceptual ideas. It’s at this point that I’m able to have a
more analytical view on my work. These illuminations teach me a lot about
myself and about my work, and for me, they are the peak of my creative
process.

3. Tell us about your educational path. You have graduated from the
Photography communications department of Hadassah College, Jerusalem. What are your best memories of your studies? What was your relationship with photography at that time?

Before I started my studies in Hadassah college, my friend Sasha P. and I were
experimenting with fashion photography and taught ourselves how to work
with studio equipment and strobe lights. During my first semester, I must
admit, I was quite narrow-minded, overly confident, and skeptical regarding
the benefit I could gain from a formal education. However, it was not long
before I realized that I had been swimming in a very shallow pool. There were
many things the internet tutorials and forums could not teach me, but which
required input from inspiring professors and classmates providing honest and
constructive criticism. After some time, I became more interested in an artistic
approach, while maintaining my appreciation for the technical aspects.

4. What were the courses that you were passionate about and which have
remained meaningful for you?

In our school we had a wide selection of courses and facilities, including dark
rooms (R.I.P.), high end printing facilities, and fully equipped studios.
One of my courses that influenced me the most was taught by Sara Filler,
during which, every student worked on their own project that was to be
presented both in a book format, as well as in a physical exhibition.
I remember when Sara brought different photography books to every single
lesson, in order to raise inspiration for different uses of the book as an
autonomous medium. As a result, I developed a sensitivity to factors such as
paper type, margins, image order, text-photo combinations etc. I was (and still
am) fascinated by this format. I now see the artistic and curatorial
opportunities that books have to offer and I admire the accessible, affordable
and permanent nature of this medium, as compared to the gallery exhibit.

5. Any professor or teacher that has allowed you to better understand your
work?

I never ever, ever missed a chance to consult about my work with different
teachers and students (teachers pet?). Without having decided upon a subject for my final project, I ventured off to Russia for two weeks, and returned with a mass of photographs that I took in various national museums. They were mostly photographs of rocks from expositions from the Museum of Space. I didn’t have a real appreciation for the photos and couldn’t connect them to anything until I showed them to Etty Schwartz, one of my teachers. Etty helped me to draw a line within this eclectic collection and to connect them to my previous work, historical facts and even my personality. That was probably the most sensitive and enlightening feedback that I have received to this day.

6. What do you think about photography in the era of digital and social networking?

The combination of social networking and cellphone cameras has made it
very easy to share personal experiences in the form of visual images.
As a result, we are exposed (some people will say “flooded”) by mass
amounts of visual information of all kinds. Such an abundance decreases our
sensitivity by heightening our emotional and visual bars; we become highly
selective of what it is we pay our attention for. I feel this benefits artistic
photography and demands that the artists leave the box, blur the edges, and
truly explore the role of their medium.

7. About your work now, how would you describe your personal research
in general?

I immigrated to Israel from Russia when I was 8 years old. If I look back at my
work, most of it deals with my identity and my belongingness to land and
culture. I think that most of my life, I was rejecting Israeli culture, weather,
nature and behaviors. I was longing for my memories of Russia. The forests,
the soft light, the smell of the black soil were part of the nostalgia I held for
that place. Since last year, I feel that my romantic feelings towards Russia
have began to evaporate, and my approach to art has become more cynical
and humorous. I have come to terms with the fact that I am stuck between two
homelands, and accept this now as an advantage.

8. Do you have any preferences in terms of cameras and format?

I like to experiment with different cameras, and formats. Both film and digital.
Yesterday, I received a spy camera hidden in a pen, just like in the James
Bond movies. For my recent work, I utilize a simple point-and-shoot and a
DSLR with an on-camera flash that helps to pop the plastic qualities and the
vivid colors out from my subjects. I don’t like to take photos with my
smartphone, because its’ camera sucks.

9. Tell us about your latest project ‘Israel in color’.
In my recent and ongoing project “Israel in color”, I am observing Israel from a
naive perspective, with a lightness that is essentially void of our contemporary
troubles, and instead, is charged with my fascination for tropical nature and
the entire kaleidoscope of human behavior. I stroll the suburban cities of Tel-
Aviv, observing landscape architecture, social fashion, attributes of domestic
life, and typological elements. My latest photographs are often identified with
a celebration of shapes and colors, which ask to glorify the beauty in
“Kitsch” culture and question the definition of “Bad Taste”.

10. Is there any contemporary artist or photographer, even if young and
emerging, that influenced you in some way?

Definitely. Hiroshi Takizawa inspired me to photograph all these rocks and to
self-published a book composed of my project, “When the earth rises”. David
Adika and Martin Paar are always with me when I’m in the suburbs
photographing exotic plants or people.

11. Three books of photography that you recommend?

- ‘Strange Paradise’ by Charlie Rubin
- ‘Vulkan oder Stein’ by Anne Schwalbe
- ‘Belleza de barrio’ by Ricardo Cases

12. Is there any show you’ve seen recently that you find inspiring?

‘HOBBY’, Solo Exhibition at Raw-Art Gallery / Ishai Shapira Kalter

13. Projects that you are working on now and plans for the future?

I am keeping busy with “Israel in color”, maintaining my routine of strolling in
the Israeli suburbs during the golden hour. I want to begin combining
sculptures and objects into this project and maybe develop some sideprojects
in parallel to the main practice. For example, I’ve bought and painted
an old post card stand, but I’m still not sure what to do with it.
In general I’m planning to start exhibiting my current work somewhere by the
end of the next fall, and I’m currently looking for space, curators and other
artists who may be interested in cooperating with me in a duet show.

BY SHEUNG YIU

© Lau Wei portrait by Sheung Yiu

Lau Wai(劉衞) is a child of two Chinese immigrants in the fifties. To her parents, Hong Kong was their new home. To Lau, Hong Kong is her only home. Born in dissimilar historical and geographical backgrounds, Lau always felt an uncrossable distance between herself and her parents. The oscillating emotional distance of home and the subsequent investigation on family history motivated by it, inspired Lau to photograph her projects.

We had a nice talk on her ongoing project ‘Ci’ (Here), a long photo journey on the history of her family’s migration, the cross generational nostalgia and the photographer’s relationship with her parents. We also talked about the huge difference between mainland Chinese and Hong Kong audience. Apparently, according to Lau, who frequently exhibited her work in China, Chinese audience is much more receptive and responsive to photographic work and the story behind it.

Lau is one of the nominees of 2015 Three Shadows Photography Awards. Her series has been exhibited in Beijing at Three Shadows Photography Art Centre starting from April.

© Lau Wai, ‘Album’

1 . Growing up, have you ever imagined being a photographic artist?

I became interested in photography in high school. I began reading about photographic techniques. I learned about analog photography as well as drawings. It was one of my earlier hobbies but I never thought photography would become my career.

I studied at Goldsmith. The school did not divide students into concentrations based on mediums, instead every student work on a project basis and chose whatever medium that suited them. On my second year, after several attempts, I realised that photography is a medium that is relatively easier to handle but can carry ‘great volume of content’. and it is a medium that I am fairly comfortable with, so naturally I started using it as my creative medium.

After graduation, I went back to Hong Kong and started my career as an photography assistant in 2008. Being financially stable in recent years, I became a freelance photographer, which gives me more time to shoot personal projects.

2. What is your first camera? What is your first memory with photography?

It was a Nikon F100, a 135 film camera. It was a rather new model when I bought it. My grandfather on both sides of my family were hobbyist photographers, but their camera were too old to work anymore. I really wanted to try analogue photography so I asked my father to buy me one.

My earliest photos are very ‘salon-like’. I used to photograph still life a lot. I would put cups, flowers and books together and use a little tungsten lamp I found at my home for basic lighting. It was very spontaneous and instinctual.

© Lau Wai, ‘Here / Ci*’

3. Have you attended art school? Is art school training important to your photography?

It really depends on the person. To me, it is important because my education opened my eyes to the creative possibilities of photography. It taught me a way of approaching ideas that I would have never learnt on my own. There is a lot of ways to find something that connects with you deeply, that inspires photography projects that are both personal yet relatable to a wider audience. That is something I learnt, a methodology if you will.

© Lau Wai, ‘Here / Ci*’

© Lau Wai, ‘Here / Ci*’

4. How is your research process for your project ‘Here/Ci’?

My approach changes with time. When I came back from London, I began each project by doing copious amount of research, obviously starting with subjects that I am interested in. When I started shooting ‘Here/Ci’ three years ago, I chose to approach the project from a personal point of view. It was my first time photographing my family. My father told me and my brother a lot of history that was unknown to us, stories about China and their migration to Hong Kong. It makes me realised how little I know about my father despite spending so much time together. My brother and I never asked about the past and our parents were very careful about what to tell us. They have made so many life altering decisions back in the days. I wanted to know what they had been through and how their decisions led to my existence in Hong Kong.

5. In your artist statement, you said that home is familiar and foreign to you. Some said emotional distance is essential for a photographer to see a story. Does the feeling of being an outsider inspire your photography?

My grandfathers were born in China and came to Hong Kong in 1940s. My parents did not come until the 70s and my mother gave birth to me in 1982. My home has always been Hong Kong, but to them, it is Beijing and Tianjin.

There is always a cultural distance between my parents and me. The stories my dad told me made me realise my ignorance of my familial history, which was very thought-provoking.

6. ‘Here’ is a series about family and your hometown, but all your photographs either show viewers an unseen, almost unsightly corner of the city or your parents being alone in a home setting, it has a melancholy undertone. Did I read the story correctly? What do you feel about immigrant’s life in Hong Kong?

I did not have a clear picture of what and how I wanted to shoot when I began the project. Now that I look back at the photos, I realize how melancholic it is, but the feeling is not something I try to produce deliberately. I did not know where these images would take me. I wanted to look deeper into what I have neglected through photography, to see what I could discover. It was really spontaneous. This melancholic undertone is also a manifestation of my feeling towards my father and the claustrophobic city.

© Lau Wai, ‘Here / Ci*’

7. Sounds like this project is deeply inspired by your relationship with your father.

Yes. It all started from him, but the subject slowly shifted to the history of my parents. Both of my parents did not talk much about their history. My mum told me her experience during the Cultural Revolution. She was very positive about it, which was surprising to me. During that time, she was sent to ‘Bei Da Huang’ （北大荒）, a place very closed to the Russian border, at the very northeast of China. She often told me her experience when I was in secondary school, but nothing much besides that period.

My dad, on the other hand, would repeatedly talk about how he missed Tianjin, his home. He would speak of the food in Tianjin and the place his family had once lived in.

As the project continued, asking and telling became our habit. To my surprise, they were actually very enthusiastic and willing. They only kept those from my brother and I because they thought we would not be interested.

8. What did you get from their stories?

I realised that every decision my ancestors made is closely causal to my existence in Hong Kong. The ups and downs they had, the ceaseless migration from cities to cities due to career and political reasons, are unimaginable to my generation. People were very passive in older times.

If I had not asked, I would not have known that my dad was sent to work in a factory for ten years, and my mum migrated four times because her parents were displaced to factories across the country.

© Lau Wai, ‘Album’

© Lau Wai, ‘Album’

9. What is the concept behind your project ‘album’?

A year ago, my grandmother passed away, She left a dozen boxes of old family photos. My family wanted someone to help archiving so I volunteered to help. I closely examined each photograph and soon realised the vastness of the project. I wanted to incorporate her photos into my work. My grandmother had collected family photos of my mother side from 1942 to 2000. Looking through those photos, I discovered some recurring motifs, for example, in a certain period, my family liked posing in front of memorial monuments, at other times, many photos were taken in elaborate studio settings. This eventually turned into the project ‘album’’.

10. You decided to exhibit the two projects together in recent photo exhibitions. Was that a natural decision to you?

I got the idea after the Lianzhou Photo Festival in November last year where I exhibited ‘Here (Ci)’. I received a lot of feedbacks and decided to reorganise my work in order to emphasise the chronological distance between each photo. Exhibiting the two projects together completes my narrative.

11. Do you have any new projects right now?

I am preparing my work for the exhibition at Three Shadows Photography Art Centre in April.

© Lau Wai, ‘Album’

12. Are there any mentors/ photographers/ young photographers/ artists that you draw inspiration from?

I used to look up to a number of photographers few years ago. Jeff Wall was a huge influence to me, but I guess after a certain stage, i intentionally avoid worshipping photographic idols. I want to break away from a certain framework or photographic thinking. Now, I mainly get my inspiration from my life.

13. How does Hong Kong inspire you artistically? Living in a city with such dense visual elements, does it influence your aesthetic and artistic thinking?

The influence is mostly reflected in my work. I cannot tell you what specifically, the influence is a subconscious one and can only be felt when you see it. My photograph is a membrane where my influence permeates.

BOOK REVIEW BY FRANCESCA ORSI

I have a personal anecdote that binds me to the noble figure of Lisetta Carmi; an exchange of letters. To reach her current “refuge” and silence I only had her postal address. So I thought to present my curatorial project, which also included her work “Transvestites”,in the same way as in the past when the communications reached us via the postman.

© Lisetta Carmi, Travestiti, 1965-71

The answer came quickly, polite and full of heartfelt sincerity that was written in a delicate and resolute handwriting similar to her way of photographing. A style that was feminine and attentive, fearless, aware of the dark side of life, of suffering. Empathetic and so wise in being able to tell it. It did not present itself as a mere witness, but as evidence that she lived in the first person.

‘Ho fotografato per capire’ (‘I photographed to understand’), published by Peliti Associati, is not only a monograph that pays a tribute to Lisetta Carmi, but demonstrates how photography has been a means of growth for the authoress, an enrichment in black and white, with a very precise style.

© Lisetta Carmi, Il porto di Genova, 1965

The letter she sent me starts with a sentence of Confucius «Under the sky only the most absolute sincerity can make changes.» And it is this sincerity of vantage point and content, that Lisetta Carmi used as unifying thread for her photographic thought. A thought that is distilled page after page, image after image, creating a corpus which besides being quantitatively significant also sheds light on its historical and iconographic depth.

© Lisetta Carmi, Ireland, 1975

«I have always tried to give voice to the last ones, to those affected by power, worldwide» Lisetta Carmi continues, and so her works make up a chorus of voices that she passionately reported, while approaching reality in such a way so as to photograph its most hidden corners. I have always been fascinated by the series of portraits of Ezra Pound. They are veiled by a mysterious eternity: beard, eyes and wrinkles of the poet seem registered in a time that had become eternal, that crossed the boundaries of the photographic moment, although in truth the meeting – at Pound’s doorway - was fleeting and of few words.

© Lisetta Carmi, Ezra Pound, 1966

At a time that emphasized content over photographic genre, Lisetta Carmi ranged from social projects and surveys - such as the Port of Genoa or the Genoese hospitals that make us spectators of childbirth - to those that focus more on the traditions of a land and on the “wrinkles” of its inhabitants. As in ‘Acque di Sicilia’ (Waters of Sicily), a work about water routes and their culture and the faces of those who lived there.

© Lisetta Carmi, Travestiti, 1965-71

Then many other works such as the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa, or Ireland during the struggle between Catholics and Protestants, or the Metro in Paris in 1965, or the flooding of Florence in 1966. And finally her “transvestites”. In the letter sent to me she said she was tired of being known only for that series, yet it is a work of rare beauty and truth. It’s the central element which unravels the whole sunburst, an elaborate set of photographs found in the wide-ranging book ‘Ho fotografato per capire’.

BY PETER WATERSCHOOT AND DIETER DEBRUYNE

© Dieter De Lathauwer

ArtWAll grew from Sunday gatherings in the tradition of the ‘salon d'artistes’ but soon became a regular Art Venue. The ARTWALL mission statement was to connect the online and the offline. In several editions AW tackled different art related topics e.g. in edition 8: the importance of bottom up curating for artistic biodiversity ’ it’s the poetry stupid ’ or in edition 9: 'the important role of the public in supporting emerging artists by buying their early oeuvre titled: ’ collectables’ . AW 10 is all about collaboration and conversation. BEELDRUIM, a collective of artists at work in the plastic arts (varying from drawing, charcoal, collage up to installation) showed their interest in working with ARTWALL. This led to an intense ‘group curatorial process’ in which the conversation between 2 platforms and on the other hand the conversation between 'a plastic photography’ and other diverse plastic arts became the red thread to follow. AW & BR tried to register convergences, noise, and juxtapositions. For any photographer with more plastic ambitions this type of mixed media group show is very liberating.

© Leen Van Tichelen

CONVERSATION ROOMS, is an exhibition and a temporary collaboration between ARTWALL (art-photography) and BEELDRUIM (plastic arts) which specifically wants to reflect on conversation on a number of levels. First of all on ‘conversation within the exhibition’, the interaction, but as well on ‘the conversation between artists’ while making and justifying their choices for the exhibition, and last but not least; on art criticism. Conversation Rooms dug deep and even seemed to have found inspiration in the proud stuttering of the maybe somewhat forgotten poet Gherasim Luca. (“Eighty year old Gherasim Luca hurled himself into the river Seine in 1994. His preceding life was all about ‘stutter-poetry’ ; poems which investigate the ultimate borders of communication and turn inward within the process of creation, doubting themselves. If anyone, then he, to show us the vulnerability of expression” ).

© Kevin Vanwonterghem

© Thomas Van Den Berghe

The BEELDRUIM-collective is convinced of the importance of attracting ‘externs’. Collaboration is bound to bring freshness and new angles. “Our collective is one of mainly drawing artists. Peter Waterschoot matched photographers with our oeuvres after studying our style and contents. We got together with the shortlisted photographers through social media and/or IRL, together searching the ‘language’ in which to interact.” BEELDRUIM-collective consists of five artists who exhibit annually for some years now. Their last pop-up location was very big but for this edition they wanted something more intimate, a matching space for the concept.

© Aurore Dal Mas

Sabine Oosterlynck, a performance artist herself, did the endcurating. Sabine studied the works of the artists and gave them her full support while preparing for the exhibition.

Kevin Vanwonterghem vs Peter Waterschoot

Kevin Vanwonterghem’s works are confronted with those of Peter Waterschoot. Kevin says: ‘I love the dark and desolate character of Peter Waterschoot’s pictures, his interest in the forced appearance of things. The unheimlichkeit. I had started new work consisting of ‘layered landscapes’ and intuitively felt the match with Peter’s work. There is still a lot to talk about. I don’t feel like linking or describing or juxtaposing our art, but each has his own story and by bringing them together the work interacts. The viewer is free to interpret and to discover the dialogue.’

Leen Van Tichelen vs Lore Horré

Both Leen Van Tichelen and Lore Horré discovered the same passion for all kinds of different printed papers via internet chats. This physical distance made them need to discover each other on a personal level. The interaction was quite intense.
For Lore Horré, an image really starts ‘moving’ when the images are disconnected from the sheer functioning of the machine. This way she leans more to the plastic arts than to ‘pure’ photography. For Leen Van Tichelen on the other hand, her studio is her refuge where she can rearrange the world and the stories she comes across. Her freedom lies in cutting and pasting images and rearranging information.

© Nicolas Van Parys

Aurore dal Mas vs Nicolas Van Parys

Aurore Dal Mas’ Polvere is all about desire and fear, with a premonition of disaster. It’s like a dark story with no beginning and no end. All the people and things in these series are temporary figures and forms. It’s a cluster of particles. Slightly blurry and dirty, it’s looking to the side of charcoal drawings. A similar uncanny feeling runs through the ‘collaged paintings’ of Nicolas Van Parys in his recent work revolving around sources and disappearance.

The work of Boris Eldagsen is all about losing yourself, from the metaphysical to the erotic.

He photographs at night to explore the limits of depiction. Rather than exploring stories, a place or a person, he hijacks and transforms the external reality, and paints a reality beyond time and space: that of the unconscious. Working in this paradoxical way, people have difficulties in attributing him to a school of photography.
Like Goethe’s Faust, he pursues “whatever holds the world together in its inmost folds” to create pictures that are inaccessible to the rational mind, compelling the viewer to turn to their own memories and feelings.
Without excessive materials or digital effects, he combines the techniques of street and staged photography to create images that sit between painting, film and theatre.

Dieter De Lathauwer vs Katelijne De Corte

Dieter De Lathauwer’s projection finds it nature in the tension field of private-public. Dieter shows us new material he has been working on. It is all about his hometown Gent. He has made a time document revolving round the demolition of the old Gent soccer stadium and the building of a new soccer temple. This recent oeuvre is brought together with the work of Katelijne De Corte. Her fragile work keeps you from stepping in to the projection room. There’s only the opportunity to look in from the outside. The slow moving projected images are signs of our volatile and unsustainable now.

© Harlinde De Mol

Thomas Van Den Berghe vs Harlinde De Mol

Both create art from necessity. Their images are extensions of themselves. Autobiographical. But at the same time timid and scared to be misunderstood, hence very vulnerable. Both work with the feminine body which they represent in anonymity. Thomas Van Den Berghe often conducts interventions on his images like folding, cutting, carefully tearing, even carrying the images in his wallet for some time. All processes which eventually result in missing information and a play of lines. Harlinde De Mol also works with bodies and lines. The lines she uses are marks which seem to ‘box’ the organic structures of the body.
Both Harlinde and Thomas work as esthetes. Beauty and roughness meet. Thomas doesn’t like talking about his art; “ I communicate through my images”. Also Harlinde states: “The image is my primary language “.

More info from HERE

BY KLAUS FRUCHTNIS

The exhibition “Between Late and Soon” explores the paradoxes of today’s photography; it defines the notions of place, space and time from multiple perspectives – it features photography as a collecting and documenting creative process.

The relationship between photography and space has been one of the major concerns of this exhibition, and the selected images clearly engage the discussion between what exists or what is set up to be photographed. If some of the images tend to focus on the notion of place as means of evidence, the other images explore the notion of time as part of a process in which the viewer has to experience it on its own. It is no longer what an image has to say about a place, but the place itself that becomes an entity with physical, intellectual and aesthetic components.

Most interesting about this exhibition, is the way of treating the images that cannot be treated purely objectively. «A space exists», de Certeau writes, «when one takes into consideration vectors of direction, velocities, and time variables. Thus the space is composed of intersections of mobile elements. […] Space occurs as the effect produced by the operations that orient it, situate it, temporalize it, and make it functional in a polyvalent unity of conflictual programs and contractual proximities. On this view, in relation to place, space is like the world when it is spoken, that is when it is caught in the ambiguity of an actualization, transformed into a term dependent upon many different conventions, situated as the act of a present (or of a time), and modified by the transformations caused by successive contexts. In contradistinction to the place, it has thus none of the univocity or stability of a “proper.”» (Practice of Everyday Life, Michel Certeau, 1984, p. 117).

In this way, instead of referring to a specific place or time, as photography usually does, these young photographers create a narrative that goes beyond the photographed space. Photography becomes more than a limited surface, it is about the surroundings and the evidence of time that remain as part of experiencing a photograph.

Photography Thesis exhibition “Between Late and Soon,” Paris College of Art class of 2015. Photographers: Nathalie Ghanem-Latour, Janine Egger, Trevor Mansfield and Efisio Marras.

Trevor Mansfield

I have a bad memory, perhaps I have partied too much, but it’s ok because I have a camera that substitutes very nicely. I photograph everything I do from the intimate moments to the most banal details of my life. The result is a visual diary consecutively outlining my existence according to what I felt was worth keeping, worth photographing. My subjects vary immensely and I don’t like to restrict myself to a single subject matter but rather work intuitively, discovering without searching. The style of my imagery varies from candid to choreographed moments, clear to impressionistic and from intimate to distant relationships with my subjects, but in my editing which with the amount of images I am taking from is very important. I tend to look for images that can be taken out of context easily, but still communicate as metaphors for some aspects of these events. With these images I can reorganize, recontextualize and realize the phenomenons that connect all these experiences and they can be formally observed to discover new meaning. Through the reordering of images, their novel associations together construct a narrative, a visual poem of my memories, yet out of context. A fiction in which the images communicate with each other in a way unique to the viewer’s own perception of the story.

© Trevor Mansfield

Nathalie Ghanem-Latour

There are things we see every day in our urban space that are over-looked.
Places so irrelevant to us they almost don’t even exist. Scenes that emerge either from natural debilitation over time, or from intended actions, without a purpose or reason, just are. Fuzzy, unimportant shapes in our peripheral vision that we walk past in a rush, or briefly viewed through the bus window. These are things that are seen but not registered: A poster advertisement scrunched up into wad of paper, still sitting in the glass case display. Or a missing tile of marble from the corner entrance of a garage, exposing the concrete plaster. These sceneries are what people might call trivial or boring, with no brilliance. Although they have no incredible importance, they still have a physical place in our community, existing either temporarily or momentarily. Even though they are not registered visually or mentally by an individual, this does not make them nonexistant, so why not acknowledge them?

These images are the acknowledgement of these places and things. In this series, an emphasis is put on architectural and sculptural particularities found on the streets of Paris. Focusing on untouched compositions, these structures raise questions and ideas about intent, purpose, and time. Confining these scenes within the frame, and presenting related found objects, brings attention to things that are meaningless or overlooked, giving them a purpose. Photographing these spectacles is both acknowledging and documenting them.

© Nathalie Ghanem-Latour

Janine Egger

Life in all its forms seems unspeakably strange to me. Therein lies a mystery of the most incredible kind. My images reveal the invisible space between language and the visual world, a space in which truth, fantasies and realities are constructed. I tend to focus on environment, human nature and material wealth, in where my schematic compositions invite the viewer to move into a space of speculation. “Inside the home of Evelin B” is an installation that aims to portray the lavish and peculiar life that takes place in my grandmother’s house, to explore the ambience of this overwhelmed home.
I like to work with different materials that speak about the concepts of space, display and intimacy. I use my own constructed images as a vehicle for questioning ideas about identity, the role of tradition while underscoring how the environment implies that objects or spaces are out of date regardless of beauty, age and utility. The narrative of this body of work dominates the actual materials and shapes within the installation.

The images transcend the stereotype of glamour and redefine what is beautiful. I rely on our desires for beauty, poetics and seduction via telling details which offer commentary on society’s obsession with surface and display. My work documents the observation of what is fake and real. It reveals snapshots of stark reality and traces of how a space is governed by one’s choices.

Attraction to artificiality and consumption explains the struggle of a person refusing the passage of time. “Inside the home of Evelin B” reflects something of life that touches on human complexity, deliberate mistakes and indeed fragility.

© Janine Egger

© Janine Egger

Efisio Marras

I was slightly other than the me whose existence is questionable.
For a minute I lost myself, but it is okay, I guess things happen and it is not my fault. Nobody knows themselves.

For a minute I lost Myself is a video installation exploring the a non-moment. A liminal space where doubting overtakes reasoning.
Question and be questioned. Questions sometimes can have the power to bring temporary answers, a temporary answer is better than none.
Stop, breath and take time to question yourself. “Why”, “how”, and “how long for”, etc., is an exceptional non-movement the one spend inside your own thoughts, lose yourself for a minute.

To think and more specifically to think about thinking.
Foundations for construction are already something finished by themselves. They are only the base for something that will be there in the future, the consecutiveness of things is still a mystery.
Life is not as defined as it appears to be. Real things happen inside undetermined places, inside liminal spaces that sometimes are overlooked or forgotten in order to foster explanation and understanding.

Not everything can be understood, named, and inscribed into little mental boxes.

The aim should is to be in a state of transition, between point A and B, the “in between” is where existence happens.

© Efisio Marras

© Efisio Marras

About Paris College of Art (PCA): Founded in 1981, Paris College of Art (PCA) is a private university in Paris, France. The university is a US degree granting institution of higher learning and is accredited by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD). PCA’s mission is to provide the highest standard of art and design education, taught within an American pedagogical paradigm, while being influenced and informed by our French and European environment. Our international faculty is comprised of 100 leaders in the art, design, and business industries in Europe and courses are taught in English. PCA offers an interdisciplinary education for students coming from 50 different countries, and awards Bachelor’s degrees in: Accessories Design; Art History, Theory & Criticism; Communication Design; Design Management; Fashion Design; Film / Video; Fine Arts; Illustration; Industrial Design; Interior Design; and Photography. The university also offers study abroad, certificate, summer, and university preparation programs. Additional information is available at Paris College of Art.

BY STEVE BISSON

1. Tell us about your approach to photography. How did it all start? What memories do you have of your first shots?

My approach to photography or film is more about the gesture and not the medium itself. It all started as revelation with one farewell:

I was always interested in a camera that listens and not in ways to conform reality to preconceived ideas. The only system that I developed is the one searching for the right distance from faces or landscapes and sometimes provoking the unexpected by suspense.

My relation to images & sounds recorded, evolved into a particular interest for storytelling, something like reading the sediments at the bottom of sea, a stratification of documents to be almost meticulously rummaged & then narrated: I rarely begin any work with a concept. Rather I search in my drawers for pieces and materials for stories to tell… So I’d say that the need to search and listen is at the center of my attempts to create.

2. How did your research evolve with respect to those early days?

Following years of accumulating film and photographic materials, themes recur. It’s an evolution and this evolution directs my present works.

My interest in combining experience, documents and narration started taking on various forms after I moved to Sicily in 2006. It resulted in my first photographic edit of ‘La maison de Cain’ (2006) and then in ‘Maesmak’ (2008) a short experimental documentary! It was the crystallization of years of experimentations (between 1998-2006). Almost instinctively I realized that when telling a story had become a natural process, to put it into very imperfect words.

«As if to look were not only linked to the application of the ability to look but were rooted in the affirmation of her presence alreadt so exposed and still hidden.»

© Georges Salameh, ‘Chinese Lantern’ from ‘Awaiting, oblivion’ (1997-2003)

3. Tell us about your educational path. What about your film studies in Paris? How did they impact on your own narrative?

The university experience at Paris VIII was of course fabulous. All the Avant-Garde of May 1968 was teaching there at the time. The funny thing is that I ended up there by luck, it was first on my application list… Four years studying film and art and soaking an abundance of knowledge under the shadow of Deleuze and the input of masters like Jonas Mekas, Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet, Alain Cavalier, the works of Pier Paolo Pasolini and many others… has shaped me in many ways. But what came after was Athens for 8 years and there an even more fundamental formation took place: through my apprenticeship in this city, I began to embrace a space not as I wanted it to be but as what it is when it eludes me.

4. From Lebanon to Greece & now in Palermo. Your job is soaked in the Mediterranean. A region that over thousands of years remains charming, lively and full of contrasts. What is your opinion of this incredible geographical area overlooking different cultures?

The Mediterranean is the geological and intangible heritage of all identity sedimentations. Open basin or cosmopolitan diversity or graveyard to three continents, Africa, Asia and Europe. I explore it as my natural habitat, but also as a field of possibilities. If I look at it with the eyes of an urban geologist, then it’s a geologist with a very erratic gaze: I stroll through its landscapes & cities as if self-exiled. Sedimentations of songs, stories, myths, migrations & longings leave a trace behind my path, some visible and some hidden. Layout and stratification, alienation, raw fiction, the poetics of light and humor all play their part in those narratives but it’s not for themselves that the stories I tell matter, but rather the traces of time and oblivion they leave behind.

5. You are now based in Sicily where you have founded in 2009 an audio-visual production house. Tell us about this experience?

Through the years since 2001, I began to direct commission videos for advertising purposes but almost exclusively projects which were conceived to promote one territory (institution, region, country…) & its culture. Some projects even went beyond their original purpose and were proposed in the form of a documentary to festivals or exhibitions, experimenting ways of narration: ‘faces of Elektra’ (2002), ‘on the olive route’ (2003) & ‘Ti Vitti’ (2012) are some examples. In 2006 I moved to Sicily. In 2009 I co-founded with Laura Sestito MeMSéA, an audiovisual production house.

© Georges Salameh, documentary, ‘Ti Vitti’, 2012, duration 28’47”

It’s first long feature documentary, ‘The Invisible Hands’ is a project expressing the aim to interact with its geographical position in the Mediterranean. The film is coproduced with Marina Gioti & Haos film from Athens, Greece, and shot almost entirely in Cairo. It is now in the phase of postproduction.

6. What about Greece and photography? Could you introduce us to the collective ‘Depression Era’?

Thought thus far there may have been no distinct characteristics that defined contemporary Greek photography, many talented photographers emerged over the last few years. Their paths were mostly personal, individual. Now a collective of artists, mainly photographers, has emerged, “Depression Era”, first gained international recognition last year. The collective platform “Depression Era” started taking shape in early 2011, after a troubled period of demonstrations and deep crisis in Greece, under the initiative of Pavlos Fysakis, Pasqua Vorgia, Nikos Markou, Yorgos Prinos, and others… The urgent need to see through the crisis and its experience crystalized into a collective initiative seeking to express our times. At its early stages we had as a canvas the FSA Photography project on the Depression era during the 30’s, but we already knew from the beginning that we were almost on our own in a landscape of devastated Greek institutions… The will and the urgency to work together gave us the necessary strength to walk steadily shoulder to shoulder all the way.

«In my quest of the appropriate distance, moving towards urban space or towards myself, wandering in time expanding, I discovered the entire minimum. The whole breathes life into detail. Detail, in turn, unravels the whole. Urban space is endless, for man is the starting point and the final limit. Man’s freedom and his right to error are redeemed in its body.»

© Georges Salameh, ‘Wink’ from ‘Les cahiers de la paix’ (1998-2006)

After aggregating those artists already working on such themes, the idea for a living archive of our era took shape. Following on from about two and a half years of fermentation, including intense discussion, collecting & producing new works, a collective of more than 30 artists: photographers, videomakers, a soundesigner, with the support of writers, curators, architects and journalists contributed to our first exhibition at the Bozar in Brussels, May 2014. Then came a few smaller contributions/exhibitions: in Paris, Istanbul, and Budapest and in parallel, workshops, presentations, conferences… Intense moments and experiences lived separately by different members of the collective culminated in our main common exhibition in the Museum of Benaki, and a series of other events between November 2014 & January 2015… Depression Era’s next steps are to conclude a cycle of 8 workshops and respond with a completely new body of works curated as a single proposal by members of the collective for the Biennale of Thessaloniki opening in June 2015.

7. Let’s talk about your long-term project ‘Les cahiers de la paix’. You wrote that it gathers autobiographical narratives that evoke the most crucial period of your formation and experimentations both in photography & filmmaking. What does it mean for you to be a storyteller?

Produced between 1998 and 2006, ‘Les cahiers de la paix’, in a direct reference to Marguerite Dura’s posthumous novel ‘Les cahiers de la guerre’, form an archive document, a series of tales, sketches, and a collection of autobiographical writings & visual stories about my youth and my formation in Athens.

«Melancholy, despair without means.»

© Georges Salameh, ‘Empty cart’ from ‘Les cahiers de la paix’ (1998-2006)

Despite the diversity of this material, the content of those notebooks amply exceeds the scope of my years in Greece. They provide a hint to my earliest experimentations … Several texts, photos, and videos scattered here and there, contribute to an overall image or an emerging narrative which outlines the personal imagery of a primitive architecture. The content takes the form of a very distinct, dual approach to narration.

First there is a direct, urgent experience of reality where the material is barely edited coming directly from an “in camera editing” technique in film or a single or few days project in photography.

The second, is the complete opposite, a work of long term aspirations: Halfway between archival documentation and fictional reconstruction. Time in this process is very important; it takes years to create a certain distance form an original material produced. Then a process of rediscovering it as an “archive”, almost without any emotional link, is put in motion…

«Humanity is the highest meaning of our planet, the nerve that connects an individual to the upper, the gaze he lifts toward the sky.»

© Georges Salameh, ‘Migratory birds’ from ‘Les cahiers de la paix’ (1998-2006)

As a whole the notebooks reflect also a city in peacetime: Athens.
We are preparing an edition of one of those notebooks for the fall, 2015: the body of work “Αθήνα σ’ακούω” (Athens I hear you). Alexis Vasilikos is curating the photo edit and Alexandros Mistriotis the texts.

8. When you start a project you already have an idea of where you’re going, or do you let yourself be guided by experimentation, by the process itself.

Most of the time I let the subject, the experience, the conditions of work and uncontrolled circumstances lead me to the form and aesthetics of the content: a narration is a direct result of their sedimentation and not vice versa. That always adds to the challenge but it’s a risk I’m willing to take every time…

9. ‘La maison de Caën’ is very interesting as you said «it created itself one real fictional space & language, a movie I called after a song by Maziar Afrassiabi: hold my me». Tell us about these 2 projects.

‘La maison de Caen’ was originally a commission. I was invited by a Greek filmmaker Christos Karakepelis, then working on his first long feature documentary, to photograph, in parallel to his own filming, all the spaces that a man who had committed a “crime of passion” goes through… Since some of these places had never been opened to a curious eye before, he asked me to accompany him on this endeavor.

«Every evening, the cleaners are the last to be locked in their prison cells.»

© Georges Salameh, from ‘La maison de Caën’

This lasted for over a year (1999). I had never been to any of these places before or worked on such a subject. In this year, with long intervals between shootings, we had several occasions to confront our entangled paths and experiences, contaminating each other’s work… In the end, the material of about 350 photos served the film’s purposes. It was only until 2004 that one image that haunted me for years, resurfaced as an icon, an upshot of that experience, and a story to be told outside the timeline of “History”. It became a story where the storytelling lasts as long as the narration unfolds, before it fades back into oblivion.

So six years later I edited this short essay-movie: hold my me. This photograph created itself a real fictional space & a language, a movie I called after Maziar’s Afrassiabi song. This triggered my renewed interest in the material of “la maison de Caen” and in 2006 I started working on the material in the form of an audio installation and a book. Without any sense of complacency, this body of work questions the world of the murderer and his point of view, reveals the fragility of our rational will, confronts the absurdity of the crime, and tries to create a bridge between two sides: the inaccessible world of Caen and us ….

«I’m fine here. Here you can hide. I hide from myself, from the act that brought me here.»

© Georges Salameh, from ‘La maison de Caën’

10. In the project ‘Standing before the ruins’ you compare your present with your past in Lebanon. The photograph becomes an exercise in the construction of an ex post imaginary of your childhood experience. You wrote «This series is achieved through a disposition of meanings, a detailed description and a creative comparison of reality». How did you achieve this?

I presented at Dimora Oz in Palermo, a first attempt to exhibit this work. Archival elements are combined with more recent photographs produced during those few returns that I have made to the country of my childhood. The result is sometimes a contradiction or an abstraction of meanings. I’m not trying to lead the spectator to think about “before and after” in strictly temporal terms, but to encourage an intuitive narration focused on lost innocence following on from catastrophe and the creative comparison of reality & ruins of identity.

11. Do you have any preferences in terms of cameras and format?

In both film and photography, I have always worked with all types of cameras and formats.

Then one day the river swallowed the bridge

«As Khadisha River crosses the city of Tripoli, Lebanon, this painting bridges me with the memory of my grandparents living room. It was dispalyed on the wall since my father painted it at the age of 18, after a photograph by his uncle. I found it last year, dusty and buried on the attic among an amat of furniture and other items; ruins of my childhood, and probably, the painting itself, ruins of his own childhood…»

© Georges Salameh, ‘abandoned painting’ from ‘Standing before the ruins’

12. Is there any contemporary artist or photographer, even if young and emerging, that influenced you in some way?

I will only give names of emerging artists that I follow closely and have influenced me in so many different ways, in their poetics, method or language…
Petros Koublis, Francesco Balsamo, Randa Mirza.

13. Three books of photography that you recommend?

I rarely collect photography books but three books in my library that I visited for inspiration lately are:
- ‘Come Again’ by Robert Frank
- ‘Passing Through Eden: Photographs of Central Park’ by Tod Papageorge
- ‘A***’ by Nicolas Comment

14. How do you deal with the exhibition of your works? Also is there any show you’ve seen recently that you find inspiring?

Exhibitions are the most joyful part of the whole creative process. And it’s a collaborative one.
One of the most inspiring exhibitions I saw in the last few years is Paul Graham’s ‘The Present’ in New York. In a strange way, he takes “the decisive moment” of Henri Cartier Bresson a step further…

15. Projects that you are working on now and plans for the future?

I’m working on an installation of video, photos & archival documents, from my project “standing before the ruins”. It will be presented in June as part of the Depression Era exhibition at the Thessaloniki Biennale. There is also a new body of photos ‘La Favorita’ in progress, it’s the result of long strolls in an area on the outskirts of Palermo, and a metaphor of my understanding of the notion of horizon…

BY KARL KETAMO

1. Tell us about your approach to photography. How it all started? What are your memories of your first shots?

I was born in a small village in the middle of Finland and had a strong urge to escape from there when I finished my school. I applied to the University of Helsinki to study to become a teacher, or just to get away. I guess I never really had a dream job or anything. At the time I was moving I bought myself a camera and started shooting, using my friends and my girlfriend as models. There wasn’t really a purpose for those photos or any deeper understanding of what I was doing, but what really caught my eye was the coincidental nature of photographing and that evolved slowly to the idea of collecting these coincidences by learning to get closer to them.

After finishing my BA in education, I applied to study photography at the Lahti Institute of Arts and Design and at the moment I’m finishing my MA in photography at the Aalto University of Arts and Design, Helsinki Finland. After reading through the history of photography I felt that I related to some photographers more than to the others. My first favorites were Diane Arbus, William Eggleston and soon after that I saw the books by Christian Patterson and Alec Soth. So my fascination towards photography has always been documentary by it’s nature. Though it’s evolving all the time.

© Aapo Huhta, from the series ‘Ukkometso’

© Aapo Huhta, from the series ‘Ukkometso’

2. How did your research evolve with respect to those early days?

It happened by doing and reading. I was shooting a lot, trying to learn everything technically and by doing that I believe I’ve slowly found themes that feels natural to me. At the same time I spent a lot of time looking at monographs and reading about photographers that inspired me the most.

3. What are some of your best memories of your studies? What was your relationship with photography at that time?

I did my BA in photography at the Lahti Institute of Arts and Design, Finland. Now, I’m just about to finish my MA study at the Aalto University of Arts and Design. I also made two student exchanges in Israel and in NY. In every school you find people that you share the same kind of mentality with. To find those people, to share your thoughts with them and learn with them is obviously playing a big role in developing yourself as an artist. I never felt an urge to be a part of a bigger social group, but merely to spend my time with a few people that I appreciate and that appreciate me.

Our discussions were all the time strongly related to photography and about defining yourself as a photographer. You know, there are so many influences at school that it can be overwhelming. What has always been a part of my work is the direct nature of photographing; the documentary element that can be found from every single photograph, though it doesn’t need to be obvious. For me, this documentary element has become a core of the grammar of reading photography. Somehow I see all photographs, no matter if staged or composed etc. through that grammar.

4. What were some of the courses that you were passionate about and which have remained meaningful for you?

I liked the classes where you had to bring a body of work to the class and then you just had a talk about it for a couple of hours. It’s a kind of class you can find in every art school at some point. I believe that seeing and talking and describing the work that is somehow at the same level than your own makes you understand different kinds of processes, and the pictures of course as well!
I was taking part of this kind of class at the SVA with the teacher Allen Frame. He has an amazing presence in teaching and an approach to students and their work. He somehow earned the respect of every student and that’s why people took it really serious and wanted to get the most out of it. By the
end of the class, it felt a little bit like a family-kind of an experience.

© Aapo Huhta, from the series ‘Ukkometso’

5. Any professor or teacher that has allowed you to better understand your work?

Allen was excellent as he’s always trying to catch a glimpse of the personality of the student and trying to see through the process of developing. He also has an excellent eye in seeing the core of someone’s work and the ability to describe it. At the same time he feels like a strong person without any need for
egoism. I was in the beginning of working on my first monograph by the time I had his class and I owe him so much for helping me find my way through the process.

6. How do you relate to the discussion about photography in the era of digital and social networking?

It’s a huge topic and constantly changing. I still think of photography as a craft that one can develop oneself to become a master of it, if you work really hard and honestly in order to understand it.

At the same time I see photography becoming easier and easier to produce, technically speaking. There are plenty of photographers that can create nice pictures that are still somehow empty or feels that you’ve seen tons of that kind of imagery. You get bored of it quite quickly and only the very few excellent works matter. The amount of pictures being produced every day is so huge that it forces you to rethink the purpose of doing it.

From the industry perspective, it also has its own issues. I’ve been fortunate to be able to make my living out of it for five years now, but I also have the feeling that the industry and its rules are changing so fast I can’t really understand. Trying to be in the front line feels like a running competition. In that sense, I feel more like running a marathon every now and then, you know, to have a more like a hobby kind of perspective towards photography, and maybe spend five years with a single project and make a small edition book out of it without any pressure to participate in ever-growing amount of competitions and social media wrangle. Speaking of which, it also seems that the personality of a photographer needs to be more like a basic office person rather than a lonely vagabond.

© Aapo Huhta, from the series ‘Block’

As the visual culture is being enjoyed more and more through streams of artwork, it gives less time for each of them. You know you can find a nice and interesting new work online everyday. On the other hand, it’s easier to share your work with a larger audience so it’s not that black and white. At the same time I still have the feeling that photography matters and I enjoy doing it and watching some of it. For me, it’s still mostly about finding my own language to observe my surroundings and to share that. So, I just don’t feel like participating too much on the attention-chase what’s going on at the moment. You know, people could sell their moms to get their piece of attention and I don’t really share those values.

7. About your work now. How would you describe your personal research in general?

Every project I’ve done has started from some kind of a coincidence and without me trying too much to produce anything. Then by the time it evolves to a direction that somehow feels important to me. So the starting point has never been really clear to me, but after a while I start having the need to understand what I’m doing and that is sort of like a second beginning of the process, when it all becomes conscious. After that it takes more work until I feel totally fed up with the whole thing and can’t reach any higher levels. I assume that is a good time to start building the body of work. But I have done only a few projects so I can’t say that I would be able to see any kind of patterns in my practice yet.

© Aapo Huhta, from the series ‘Block’

8. I’ve noticed that over the years you’ve worked with a variety of different photographic mediums. How do you go about choosing a certain medium for a project? For the collective project “Kainuu” and your series “Ukkometso” as a part of it you worked with medium format. I am interested how you go about choosing a certain medium for a project? In other words what determines the medium you use?

It changes by the time quite much, depending on the aesthetic development one is constantly having as well as on the method of shooting. It’s not really that conscious all the time and I enjoy keeping it a little bit more intuitive as it is a one way to expand a dimension of an aesthetic language. For a quite many years I was shooting large format but it started to feel too static and lately I have been shooting with smaller formats. My new book is shot with 35mm and it fits well to the method of stealing pictures.

© Aapo Huhta, from the series ‘Ukkometso’

11. Could you tell us about your latest project titled ‘Block’.

I have been working on my first monograph that is titled ‘Block’ and will be published by Kehrer Verlag later this year. It started by coincidence as I moved to New York for the first time and spent a lot of time by just walking around the city. After some months of just shooting randomly I started working more consciously. I had the idea of showing somewhat dystopic scenes of an anonymous city witnessed by a stranger. At the same time it is a story where the photographer plays the role of a protagonist in an infinite whirl of new people and weird, concrete surroundings with no signs of our time (like advertisement or contemporary clothing etc.) After six months of shooting I started the editing process that took me another half year. During that time I made several dummies to see the work in the shape of a book. Then I went back to New York to shoot more. It’s been a process of a year and a half now and the printing process is just about to start, I’m really excited to see the final book once it’s ready!

© Aapo Huhta, from the series ‘Block’

9. Which contemporary artist or photographer do you feel have influenced your work in one way or another?

I think my biggest sources of inspiration are the same old where it all got started, I mean William Eggleston, Sternfeld, Robert Frank, Alec Soth and Diane Arbus. I haven’t really spent too much on looking at new works recently as you get so easily lost with the idea of the world as an infinite blog
stream. I’m trying to avoid spending too much time online and to focus more on the physical world.

10. Three books of photography that you recommend?

I just bought the ‘Minutes to Midnight’ by Trent Parke and what I enjoy the most is absolutely the really good photography in it. Also Lars Tunbjörk’s ‘Vinter’ and the ‘Office’ are my big time favourites. It’s a tragedy to lose one of the very bests.

11. Is there any show in particular that you’ve seen recently that you find inspiring?

I was very keen to see Heikki Kaski’s ‘Tranquillity’ as an exhibition in the Finnish Museum of Photography, because the work is initially designed to be a book and I have had the chance to see his working process quite closely as we are schoolmates from our previous school.

Heikki Kaski, exhibition views from the Finnish Museum of Photography // 20.3 – 17.5.2015

12. Projects that you are working on now and plans for the future?

I’m currently focusing only on my first monograph that will be published by the Kehrer Verlag later this year. I haven’t really spent too much time on thinking what to do after that but I hope there will be more coincidences!

Good luck with the finishing touches of “Block”! Look forward on seeing the book out there later on this year!

BY DIETER DEBRUYNE

1. Tell us about your approach to photography. How it all started? What are your memories of your first shots?

It started when I came across a couple of photographic books in my village library. They had a profound impact on me, they gave me an insight into worlds unknown, they fed my imagination in a more direct way than a novel or essay did at that time. I started photographing everything that presented itself before me that I thought would make an interesting picture. Perhaps this is how everyone starts finding some engagement with photography. Of those early results I don’t have any clear memory; I think the subjects I was attracted to all those years ago are still the subjects that interest me today. I think an artist never really departs far from those early defining moments.

© Allan Grainger, Selfridges

2. How did your research evolve with respect to those early days?

I have always been interested in photographing in the urban environment, the street, trying to find some meaning within the numerous narratives that are constantly emerging and dissolving before my gaze. When I consider my early pictures there is within them a strong sense of compositional order that was directly influenced from history and mythological paintings, such as the Oath of the Horatii by Jacques-Louis David, and Music in the Tuileries by Édouard Manet. As a consequence, I was trying to find in the street the multi-narratives that were being expressed in these types of paintings; I wanted to also produce narratives that had meaning, that weren’t esoteric, that might reach a wide spectatorship, that were not elitist but democratic in their understanding, yet had sufficient mystery to allow an imaginative engagement with the picture. I was looking for ways in which to add numerous narratives to a single picture. However, I was finding the success rate limited with an analogue process. It was only with the arrival of Photoshop that I was able to apply a creative approach that echoed some of the ideas I was interested in, and that I first discovered in history painting.

© Allan Grainger, Southbank

3. What do you think about photography in the era of digital and social?
networking?

The stock reply would be, there are lots of pictures, as a consequence of the digital process being easy and capable of proliferating images to an unimaginable, and perhaps an unsustainable volume. However, artists such as Joachim Schmid have appropriated some of this huge social networking resource to make visual commentaries on modernity; photographic artists will always use the technology of the time, in a sense its part of the message. I’m inclined to agree with the historian Eric Hobsbawn’s notion, expressed in his book ‘Fractured Times’, that ‘the medium was revolutionized for the sake of the message’; and I would add, as no doubt Hobsbawn might, revolutionized primarily for the sake of the market. Art and photography have always been in an unholy alliance with capital from which it seemingly can’t escape.

The era of digital and social networking and the role of photography within this period has I think, to some extent, empowered people by creating a new form of communication; as long as the older forms are not subsumed, then I think the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. Many of the images uploaded are just visual notes showing who we are, where we are, and what we are doing, now - all qualified by a like and a comment. What seems to be missing with this form of photographic communication is a degree of contemplation necessary when looking at a Jacques-Louis David or a Édouard Manet painting or a Jeff Wall photograph. However, the Facebook image serves a function and has meaning for someone, somewhere.

© Allan Grainger, Tivoli Corner

4. About your work now. How would you describe your personal research in general?

I try to keep an open mind to all aspects of the medium, even those aspects that I don’t particularly like. I inform my practice through other media; literature is important inasmuch as it feeds back into my practice. When I start a project I send time researching information that connects with the concept of the project. With all my work the aim is to try to add something to the archive of a particular genre of the medium.

5. Do you have any preferences in terms of cameras and format?

Throughout my photographic life I have used 8x10, 4x5, medium format and 35mm cameras. The project ‘London Tableaux’ was produced on a Nikon D3 using a tripod. Analogue, digital, large or small is only important in terms of what you are trying to achieve with the finished work; they are merely tools. Also, the notion that a larger camera will somehow produce a more contemplative response to the subject being photographed is a myth. Every individual reacts differently to a subject, it has very little to do with the size of the camera.

© Allan Grainger, Parliment Sq.

6. Tell us about your latest project ‘London Tableaux’

‘London Tableaux’ is an ongoing project that considers events that take place within significant cultural areas of the city. By presenting a transitory community within these tableaux, which momentarily exist in various cultural and social boundaries of the city, I aim to create a visual commentary on London today that considers ideas of place.

By the introduction of temporal shifts, the tableau focuses on narrative layers, which are realised over several hours; the pictures therefore disrupt the paradigm of documentation and add a different interpretation of place.
In a sense these pictures exist somewhere between the single still image and the moving picture. They show corporeal rhythms, metaphor, and allegory, depicting a city open to subjective interpretations, yet restricted by its historic archive.

The tableau form in this work uses current technologies that enable my pictures to become a kind of ‘electronic montage reenactment of a public performance’, which is never far away from a documentary form of depiction. Yet, the objective translation of that depicted is subsumed by the author’s hand, by a subjective interpretation, by an emotional response.

A place is formed by discourses that exist within and outside of its specific geographical space; a space, it might be said, when it is delineated by myths, marks of time, physical interventions and so on, becomes a place. It is these precepts, which form the collective idea of place that interest me.

© Allan Grainger, Whitehall

7. Is there any contemporary artist or photographer, even if young and
emerging, who influenced you in some way?

My influences come from many sources, not just art and photography. If I have to pick only one, it would be Jeff Wall.

8. Three books of photography that you recommend?

- ‘Camera Lucida’ by Roland Barthes
- ‘Why Photography Matters as Art as Never Before’ by Michael Fried
- ‘Jeff Wall: Selected Essays and Interviews’ by The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

9. Is there any show you’ve seen recently that you find inspiring?

Not any in their entirety - there are always some parts of a show that trigger inspiration. I always enjoy going to festivals just for the fact that you are exposed to so much variety.

10. Projects that you are working on now and plans for the future?

I have two projects I am working on at the moment; London Tableaux, In This Place and I have also just started a landscape project; this will be my first departure away from the urban environment, however, my concerns will no doubt be present within the rural setting.

© Allan Grainger, Southwark Cathedral

11. How do you see the future of photography in general evolve?

Since 2013, there has been a resurgence of interest in alternative photography processes in the UK and Europe. My current feeling is that it cannot be sustained; this in part is due to the cost of materials that will become forevermore out of the reach of the majority, who use photography in a way other than making a ‘keep-sake’ record. I also think, that the current interest in the haptic aspect of the medium is probably a response to this passing of this old technology. There is a kind of alchemy associated with the analogue process - the search for the unique object/print, - lead into gold. No two prints are the same; in a sense they are products by error, or at less an inability to control the process, which is always in flux. This may be also the attraction of analogue - a process free, to some extent, from a controlling agency. By contrast the digital process is sometimes viewed as an overly controlled process, with no creative capabilities; as a consequence there are some antagonistic feelings towards it.
Photography is at a pivotal moment in its history; it is difficult to predict its future.

BY RENATA SCOVINO

In the project ‘Desterro – Exile Project’ Ícaro Lira develops a research in the field of visual arts which seeks interdisciplinary partnerships in sociology, anthropology and archeology. His work includes several actions that start from the need to stay in the place of investigation. The search in the archives of the institutions, the cohabitation and the interviews with local residents, as well as notes, drawings, diaries, videos and photos. All feeds his project. It can be said that the work of Ícaro questions the notion of art which separates the process and the documentation. He goes way beyond that, since, for the artist it’s not enough to collect material and replicate museum procedures. The work of Ícaro is based on the archive as a possibility of redemption of the past, is not the mere recognition of an event that interests, but a kind of knowledge that opens to empty, absences and oblivion. It’s the contradictory game near and far, appear and disappear, the visible and the invisible. Through the evidence he seeks the evocative power of the images, and to create room for the experience of the memory. The image becomes powerful enough to recall the event without imitating it. We talk to Ícaro Lira about the ‘Exile’ project and its book publication.

1. In the ethnographic research, theory and practice are inseparable. Generally speaking, before going to the field is necessary to seek information on the subject to be searched. In the field the look and the ears are shaped, guided and disciplined by the theory. Upon returning the facts are translated and framed an interpretative theory. Within the poetic freedom of artistic production this procedure has been somewhat helpful to you? It is also true that reality always trumps theory and ends up turn it over. Do you agree?

My first contact with Canudos was with the Glauber Rocha film and then with the book Sertões by Euclides da Cunha. Antonio Conselheiro is from Quixeramobim in the central backwoods of Ceará - my home state - and I always had a very close contact with his image. I worked initially with materials from the National Library (in Rio), Joaquim Nabuco Foundation (Recife) and Bahia Public Archive (within the Bahia Biennial). My research proceeds fundamentally on the fields with the locals, with the survivors and their descendants. I consider all my work as a single body, a continuous research on forced migration movements. I try not to put things in frames, works are open ideas and their formalization in the museum or gallery also follows this path. There is no final form, but an ever-changing. So I try not to be framed by previous theories and ideas, but I am open to discoveries, ramifications and overlapping in the stories I strive for.

© Ícaro Lira

2. To become an ethnologist, according to Levi-Strauss, it takes a vocation for ‘chronic uprooting’, ie not feel at home anywhere. When does it begin and when does it end a trip for you?

The backcountry of Brazilian northeast, in general, interests me. I do not separate this research on Canudos from others I’ve been doing in recent years. They all have in common the question of social control and isolation. My route in Ceará includes places as Juazeiro, Crato, Senador Pompeu and Quixeramobim, and in Bahia, beyond Canudos, Feira de Santana, Euclides da Cunha, Monte Santo, Bendegó. I now realize that only a local and long-term work may have some effective action. I am a little like a snail that carries its house around. Between 2012 (when I started DESTERRO work) and 2013, I lived like a nomad, homeless. Once started a journey it never ends. Paths instead have an end.

3. Jean-François Lyotard considered “the end of narratives” as the founding event of post modernity. And, in fact, in a significant part of contemporary production what the artist offer to the viewer are or possible clues, whose function is to create an atmosphere around what can be deduced from the chain of events. Are these photos, videos, notes, found objects or their combinations an updated version of the travel reports? A version that allows several readings and a very rich contamination, rather than impose a text ready to be observed?

What if, instead of evidence for a descriptive and analytical discourse, archeology bring in objects and images to a poetic experience? Can we advance from a stone, a stick, or an old cloth some form of non-scientific knowledge? Our work can be an exercise in archeology that seeeks to “understand”, in other ways, events that left their mark on our history, like the one of Canudos.
I prefer to run away from a concept that limits the exposure of the idea. I know what I have to avoid. I carefully try not to fall into traps such as the mere pamphlet or the fetish object. The exhibited objects gain strenght when they are put together, articulated, to create relations. And the viewers also create their own connections and paths within the exhibition.

4. The organization of this collection of recorded actions and collected objects is made in the form of a archive. An intricate archive which involves the practice of assembling as a possibility: relating, subverting and questioning the meaning of things that appear in it. It’s almost like a background in which we meet your imagination. The elements fitting this archive are available to the viewer, they are grouped into blocks which enable multiple and anachronistic interpretations. What is the function of this archive and its organization when it comes to defining the intention of the work? Or would it be possible without this archive?

The objects that I bring to the exhibition space are mostly used, old and discarded. Nothing is new; everything has its invisible history and imposes itself as an enigma. Temporally isolated, everything takes place in relation to the others. Photographs, boxes and other collected fragments are associated in the assembly. Everything changes reference. My background as an artist comes from the cinema: the assembly, the editing and cinefilia. I guess this explains a little my way of thinking these objects, photos, videos etc… These objects come from my memory of these places. I think that those elements alone do not have much strength. Each exposed thing then presents its own temporal condition, and the installation that I realize in the exhibition space allows the multiplication of narrative possibilities and combinations. It is impossible to outline a systematic logic that leads to a unidirectional interpretation - since conflicts have always varied versions, as opposed to official histories.

5. In addition to the photographs found during the research, you’ve been taking photographs on your own. These seem more aimed at gathering the landscape that matters to you, and that you want to present in a direct, frontal, and informal way. How important is it for you to include your images? And how they work in the book?

I am not a photographer and despite several clichés - the trip, the photographer, the documentation that is likely to treat the subject as exotic - in the photographs there is no subject that rely on the object. So there is no room for the exotic. I have a feeling that the images are not photographs, but records (perhaps remains) of a presence that did not found a point of view, and was rather diluted in the landscape. The work is about Canudos, which is already a strong theme that dispenses the author. My photos, within the book, work in conjunction with the found images, with the texts, notes, drawings, newspaper articles. It is the relationship with it all that make them powerful.

6. The historical identity and the poetic fiction, or the poetic identity and the historical fiction, both are present in the publication, and within the texts written by different authors. Please comment on the role of the working group within the project and the partnerships that have occurred for the book production.

The work is an open book, which is still being written and asks to be written collectively, to be subject to constant changes, and to be able to “grow on each side”. I think the space for conversation as something very important in this process. The different views, discussions and collaborations I had with the other artists and curators during the residency, enriched and defined the result of the publication. It should be noted that the popular project of Canudos, at first, was to build a community…

© Ícaro Lira

© Ícaro Lira

7. In your work on Canudos you tell of a city that grew on the promise of a popular project as had never been seen before, and which had been burned down and had its population decimated because of the threat it represented. The city then rebuilds slowly, and again, they decide to end it, building a dam that flooded the territory formerly occupied by the city, destroying, in turn, much of the historical evidence of the massacre that happened above. The way you tell us this, however, is always very careful to avoid, at all costs, the spectacle and the exotic appeal. In the second phase of the project, now in Ceará, you intend to deal with such a sensitive subject as this. Tell me a little, how you came to that kind of approach that your work advances. And tell a little of what you want to accomplish in this second phase.

I think the main point is to talk about removed stories. Historical processes that keep repeating themselves and yet are officially deleted by the State. Canudos was burned down in 1886 and men were beheaded. The second city built by the survivors was flooded in 1969 already during the military dictatorship. The images accompanied by forgetfulness, shadows, absences, speak of an open history, with different versions. Thus it’s an experience that, as the found images, is inserted in the past, and it is not just about the past and its acceptance. Right now I’m working on a new research about the concentration camps that existed in Ceará between 1915 and 1932. These camps served to keep away the hinterland population from that of the State capital, Fortaleza, because these people did not fit the pattern of civilization that the city wanted to transpire in the modernization period.

© Ícaro Lira

8. The book 'Artificial Hells’, by Claire Bishop begins with a quote of Dan Graham that says: «All artists are alike. They dream of doing something that’s more social, more collaborative, and more real than art.» What do you think?

Actually, I think that there are few artists who have that kind of concern, but for me this is real. Art is always almost doomed to failure. In the near future I want to leave São Paulo and move permanently in that region. Perhaps with this move, and far from expectations of an art system, it is possible to perform a real job, which in fact dialogue, touch and modify some tired structures of the medium.

©Ícaro Lira | urbanautica Brazil

BY NICOLETTE KLERK

1. Tell us about your approach to photography, how it started. What are your memories of your first shots?

When I was fourteen I started a photography-course at a local community centre. I mostly took portraits of friends in a home-built studio in the attic, using all my parents lampshades. I was very lucky this class was taught by a very passionate photographer. He made me explore all kind of techniques and genres and I could always use his equipment and dark room. Thinking back at it he was probably the best teacher I ever had. So after highschool it was not hard for me to decide what do next: art school. Luckily I got accepted at the Royal Academy of Arts in The Hague being just seventeen.

© Marleen Sleeuwits, Interior 45

2. How did your research evolve with respect to those early days?

Art Academy was a lot about learning techniques and writing down concepts. The downside for me was that I didn’t really learn to explore my own style and interests. This was something I missed once I got graduated and it was the reason I applied for a master in Breda. Since then my work has followed quite a focused trajectory; from photographing architectural spaces, to constructing them myself, to eloping from the photographic frame altogether into physical space itself. It’s actually quite recently I have found my own approach and I learned to trust my intuition more. This was very liberating because my process is now much more organic: Making and thinking simultaneously, so I guess that’s much more like it was when I was fourteen.

3. When photography is a (sub)division: how is photography related within your work?

Although photography is still very important in my work the actual ‘taking-photo-part’ is becoming less and less. Mostly I work for weeks or even months on a space: constructing, painting, drilling etc. I always take shots with a digital camera to see how things work out 2-dimensionally and once I’m satisfied I take just one shot with my 8 x 10 inch camera.

© Marleen Sleeuwits, Interior 42

4. What do you think is important for the emergence of your work? What makes a picture a strong image?

To me it’s important that one photo tells a specific part of the overall concept I’m trying to get across. In one work it can be more about materials and in another it
can be more about scale and how you relate to space as an individual.

5. About your work now. Can you describe your personal research in general?

I let the elements in the interior/ office building guide me and that is the starting point of my work. I work with materials I encounter there. Also I have a lot of ideas which I make sketches of or that I write down. Most of the time I start with one of these vague plans. While I’m constructing the space I always take pictures with a small digital camera to see if things work the way I want. This is seldom the case so then I keep changing the space until all pieces come together. This process is quite intuitive.

© Marleen Sleeuwits, Interior 42

6. What are your considerations?

In my photography and objects I research interiors in which you don’t feel connected to a speciﬁc place or time. It is a conﬂicted feeling that certain places can evoke inside of me.

7. What is your main source of inspiration?

For me inspiration can come from many things. From just wandering through empty buildings to visiting a hardware store to endless surfing online.

8. Is there any contemporary artist or photographer, even if young and emerging, who influenced you in a way?

I don’t know if I’m influenced but I have for a long time loved the work of Lynne Cohen. She also took photos of interiors which are really surreal. Nowadays I enjoy artists like Andre Kruysen, Michiel Kluiters, Katja Mater or Anouk Kruithof because they search for the boundaries of photography. They combine photography, sculpture with installation and drawing.

9. Tell us about your latest project ‘Interiors’

Recently I have been deforming spaces in vacant ofﬁce buildings. I investigate whether I can reconstruct certain qualities of the interiors I photographed previously. I let the aspects in the interior guide me when working with materials I encounter there. These are usually non-durable materials like sticking tiles, false ceilings or insulation material.These materials give the interiors the capability to change their identity rapidly.
Rather than photographing existing architecture, this way of working enables more psychological spaces to appear that convey the feeling of disconnection in a more personal and profound manner. The images create a place with something in between reality and illusion. As if there is a gap between seeing what is there and what is not. In my spatial works and installations this experience becomes even more tangible.

© Marleen Sleeuwits, Interior 40

10. Which projects are you working on now and are there plans or ‘needs’ for the future?

For a few years I’ve been thinking about making a photobook but I always saw too many obstacles. In my photoworks scale and the actual sizes are crucial to the experience of it. I had no idea how I could get these aspects across in bookform. If I just put the pictures in a book this important aspect of my work would completely be lost. Last summer I came up with the idea to build an enormous maquette, scale 1:6. This maquette represents a fictive exhibition-space where all my work is displayed. Flipping through the book will seem like you walk through a real exhibition. I love the idea that the maquette solves the problem of scale and even brings an a extra layer to my work.The book will be launched at the end of this year by Onomatopee Publishers. Besides this huge project I’m working on my first solo show in my new gallery FeldbuschWiesner in Berlin. This exhibition will open this coming december.

11. Is there any show or film you’ve seen recently that you find inspiring?

I just saw the solo exhibition of Geert Goiris in Foam and loved it!

12. One to three books of photography or art that you recommend?

- ‘Multiple densities’ by Katja Mater;
- ‘La Hütte Royal’, 2013 by Thorsten Brinkman
- ‘New scenes’ by Esther Tielemans

13. How do you see the future of photography in general evolve?

I guess this world becomes more visual so I think the language of photography becomes more and more diverse and therefore more interesting.

© Marleen Sleeuwits, Interior 2

14. What do you think about photography in the era of digital and social networking?

Personally I use Facebook to give people insight in my process, inspiration and thoughts behind my works. I think it’s a great way to make my work more accessible. And of course I use it to tell about upcoming exhibitions.

15. How do you combine your work and private life?

At the moment this is quite hard actually. I have a son who is one and a half years old and and I am expecting another baby in a few months. In the meantime work didn’t get any slower, so this means there just isn’t enough time for all the ideas and plans I have. I find it annoying that practical things always seem to go on and that new things at the studio come last. Also visiting exhibitions from others is something I don’t do as often as I used to but one day, one day I will have time…

© Marleen Sleeuwits, Interior 38

16. Do your prefer to work alone or as a team?

Most of the time I work on my own and I must admit I love it that way. Over the last few years I occasionally have had an intern to assist me; helping out with practical matters like building installations. That’s always fun and very efficient especially in times, like now, when a lot needs to be done. At the moment I am working on my first publication and on a big solo show. Despite the fact that working together is more efficient I feel I come to better ideas when I work alone. So this is a dilemma.

17. So is it hard to manage all the deadlines?

Actually I’m quite good in planning my work and meeting deadlines. This is because my character is quite chaotic and stressed. If I don’t organize everything very well my head is overflowing quite fast. So you won’t find me installing my work the night before an opening. The last couple of years in addition to my daily to do list I also make a schedule for one year, most of the exhibitions and big projects like the book launch are scheduled way ahead anyway, and this helps me to keep an overview.

© Marleen Sleeuwits, Interior 39

18. What about locations for your works?

Over the years I have made many connections with anti-squad organizations and many office buildings in The Hague are empty. If I have to leave a certain place most of the time something fitting comes along quite soon. I also try not to make to many demands and let the restrictions I find guide me to make new works.

BY ELINE BENJAMINSEN

1. Hi Jonas! You’re a Magnum member and long-time contributor to National Geographic, among others. How did your interest in photography start out?

I was 14 to 15 years old, toying around with a camera I found in my fathers’ cupboard. I mostly took photos of friends and the place around where I was living. I got so enamored with it that I asked my father if we could build a darkroom together. And so I basically moved in to one of the bathrooms of my family’s house. I got really fascinated by the process - all the chemicals and magic, it’s like alchemy. It took over more and more of my time and focus. I started bringing a camera everywhere and photographing everything. I started looking up photography books at the library and got inspired by all kinds of people. In the beginning I looked at everything I came across, but I had a preference for documentary from early on. I got really fascinated by books by for example Leonard Freed - who’s one of the more underrated magnum photographers, and Joseph Koudelka who’s work really hit me in the belly. The likes of Salgado and Cartier-Bresson… My parents collected National Geographic, the way so many families used to do before; rows on rows of yellow in the basement. So after school I’d dig into their collection, and would be sitting around just being absolutely fascinated by this sort of act of looking at the world… it really had a big impact on me.
I feel like I never actually made the decision to become a photographer. By the time I was 18 and high school was finishing, and everyone was finding out what they wanted to do, I sat with the question of what to do now - invent something new for me to do or just keep doing this thing that I’ve been doing all this time and that is taking up all my attention? So I kind of just continued doing what I was already doing.

2. How did your practice evolve from there?

I went to England when I was 19 years old and got this internship at the Magnum office in London. My way into doing the work I do now was a kind of a strange one in a sense. Russia is really where I started as a photographer on my own. I decided to move to Siberia, thinking I was going to learn how to do photography there, and that I was going to stay for as long as it takes to make a story that made sense. So I begged various film companies for sponsorships, to give me film. Fuji gave me 500 rolls of slide film, and off I went. I got this small grant from Magnum also, that was part of the internship agreement. There was this story that I wanted to do that was connected to my family history there. My mothers’ family was Jewish immigrants in New York with roots in Russia and Ukraine. So I went to learn Russian and photography… and that put me on this long path towards this love affair that I had with the former Soviet Union. I mean, in terms of how my practice evolved… I don’t know! I kind of just threw myself into it. I learned from failing a lot, and by trying things out.
I hadn’t thought about the fact that there were nowhere inside a 2000 km radius where you could actually develop this slide film that I’d been given. I got stuck there with nowhere to develop it for nine months, without seeing a single picture, trying to feel my way to something. I didn’t even know if I was exposing correctly. I can’t really explain it but that I didn’t see any pictures the first period of time when I was trying to make things work - I think it has somehow had a really big influence on my work. It forced me to think more and try to visualize, while also reflecting on how I was relating to people.

3. What do you think about the role of photography in the era of digital and social networking?  

I’m one of the big optimists. People are walking around with photography transmitters in their pockets! I mean, it has never been that good before! You can be nostalgic about the old days, but I think if Philip Jones Griffiths and those guys, when they were working in the 60s – it would be a wet dream for them to send their images straight from the field into peoples’ pockets.
There has never been a time when so many people at so many places are engaging with photography every single day – producing it, observing it, sharing it. How can that not be good for photography? To say anything else sounds totally crazy! Of course people use it differently now than forty years ago. But I think peoples’ literacy when it comes to photography has never been higher than it is today. People are becoming more and more visually sophisticated. Of course it’s changing the business, but those things are always evolving anyways, and you always have to be active and innovative and try to find new opportunities for how you produce your work. I think photography is proving itself to be the ideal medium for the way people consume media now, with our almost non-existent attention spans.

4. Tell about your time after Russia.

I kept traveling while living in New York. I got banned from Russia but wanted to keep working in the former Soviet Union, so I kept going to all the other ex-Soviet republics. I’ve always liked to chase assignments while at the same time have larger personal projects running.
I like to think that I have a pretty simple relationship to photography. There is no hocus pocus around what I do, it’s pretty straightforward.

5. Do you think many people have a complicated relationship to photography?

Yes, I think many people torture themselves if they don’t feel that they fit into what they think they should be doing. I think you just have to find the way that works for you, and feel good about it - be honest about it.

6. Any mentor, teacher or anybody else that has had an impact on how you understand your work?

I never had a mentor. It always sounds great when people have a mentor! But I’ve gone about my work in a pretty solitary way.

7. What was your process of wanting to become a member of Magnum?

Like mentioned earlier, I’ve always derived a lot of inspiration from the work of many people in Magnum from a very early age. And then I was lucky enough to become an intern there for a year when I was 19.
In 2004 I became a member. It felt like I was becoming part of a family of photographers that already had inserted a great influence and pull on me. Not to say that there isn’t a great number of photographers outside of Magnum that I love the work of, but somehow this collective played a critical role in my development as a photographer.

8. Do you have any comments on how photography has been or is evolving in Norway? Is there anything you have observed in particular?

I feel I’m a bit too much of an outsider commenting on this, as I spent the first decade of my working life abroad, and didn’t go through the same challenges as many of the photographers that are working here have.
But what I can say is that my feeling is that Norwegian photography has been split for years between different groups; the art photographers and the photojournalists, without many crossovers. Some say it’s more imagined than real - I have no idea but it’s my impression that these different schisms have been kept in place by institutions, and have subsequently been defining photographers, creating barriers and restrictions. Not that it ever made sense to me, so I’m probably not describing it well.
At the same time I have to say that I’ve observed a tremendous development in Norwegian photography the last years. Many are producing their own thoughtful work. I think the level of photography in Norway is sky rocketing at the moment. That on its’ own is probably breaking down these barriers. Especially I see that new work produced by young photographers cross the boundaries, so probably a natural evolution is happening. Also there are plans to create a center of photography in Oslo. That could really be the nail in the coffin for these separations.
10-15 years ago I think Norwegians who worked on their own long-term independent projects were pretty lonely. Now there is a lot of energy going on.

9. About your work now - how would you describe your practice at the moment?

I don’t actually think too much about photography – what really makes me engaged in something is when it’s a good story. I never think, “I want to go there, because that will be a great picture”, I think “wow, that’s a great idea because it’s a great story”. That’s the part of photography that engages me; the story telling. Of course single photographs can move me, but when I really get fired up about something, it’s because it’s a good story waiting to be told. I guess that’s the best answer to what my process and all is; I’m more interested in the story than the photography. I kind of believe that if you have a good idea and a good story, usually the pictures get good. Very often when people struggle to make good pictures it’s because they don’t have a good story.

10. Do you have any motivation for how you wish your work to be perceived?

I want to be part of the public discussion. What I hope is that seeing my work will inspire discussion and reflection, and invite people to pose questions on society. There probably aren´t any single images of mine that will change the world - but all of this is cumulative.

11. Have you ever consider doing anything else?

Yeah - it took me a while to learn that your creative life goes up and down. You have periods of great inspiration and energy, and you have periods without it. You have to deal with these things somehow, and that’s what being a so-called professional is – that you can deal with your own psyche. There’s been many times where I felt at the bottom of that curve and that I was repeating myself, but then I’ve always found some new flame that makes me inspired again. And then I’m back in love with the whole thing.
Photographing has somehow become my way of dealing with things, if I’m curious about something, I go to photograph it to gain an understanding. It’s part of my fiber.
I can maybe imagine stopping to work as a photographer, but not to stop using it to understand how the world runs. That’s way more terrifying.

12. Do you have any preferences in terms of cameras and format?  

Nah.

I mean, whatever makes for good story telling is the right way to do it. I look at all those things just as dialects for storytelling. At the end of the day it’s about being articulate in your dialect. As long as you’re articulate, it’s good to look at.

13. What’s your dialect?

Simple photography. Uncomplicated photography. But that isn’t to say that it can’t be a beautiful thing to look at work by somebody who’s really articulate in a really complex and craftsmanship demanding dialect. I think you have to be articulate for each particular story that you’re trying to tell as much as with any poem you’re trying to recite. Things have to match up. Working on an 8x10 camera in a really slow way, three frames a day, is equally valid to instagramming the heck out of something – but it doesn’t mean that they should mix. When you know what you want to communicate, usually you’ll find the right form. The other way around can often become a disaster, claiming a style without knowing what you want to say.

14. Is there any contemporary artist or photographer that influenced you in any way recently?  

There are probably a lot of them; they are sneaking their way into my vocabulary without me knowing it. I’m influenced by so many things, and have a hard time pin-pointing this or that person, except for the people that I discovered photography through. I’m probably equally influenced by things outside of photography like literature, journalism, personal experiences and encounters. These things I can imagine have more influence on me than looking at pictures, but it’s all cumulative, isn’t it?
I can’t just breath photography all day long - I need other things too. In a way one of my greatest sources of inspiration is not thinking about photography. If my entire emotional life depended on photography, I’d go mad.

15. Three books of photography that you recommend?  

I want to point out Lars Tunbjörk who just passed away. He was a terrific photographer, I’ve always greatly admired him. Actually I want to mention all of his books; ‘Office’, ‘Home’, ‘Winter’…

A classic is ‘Telex Iran’ by Gilles Peres.

‘Interrogations’ by Donald Weber is a very thought provoking book.

16. Is there any show you’ve seen recently that you found inspiring?  

I’m dying to see Tom Sandberg at Kunstnernes Hus. He’s a Norwegian photographer that I discovered very young. I was always enamored by his work – his diffuse, ambiguous pictures, repetions… very alluring somehow.

17. Are you working on any projects at the moment?

I always like talking about pictures that I’ve taken, not pictures that I’m going to take. But what I can say is that I’m currently working on a really fascinating personal project in which I’m very engaged in and that I don’t know how long is going to take to finish. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time, and I’m in a period where I’m feeling very inspired.

18. Any plans for the upcoming future?

Well, I’m having a baby this fall, so that will impact me pretty severely. That’s my main plan for the future now. What can impact your life more? I became a father quite young in my career, and at first I was greatly worried when at 23-24 years old I was becoming a father. I worried it would destroy my work. However it didn’t take me long to figure out that a lot of what might be good in my work is because of that process. It forced me to grow up and mature and to think in such a different way that I think it directly translates into the better work that I’ve done. So I think that embracing those kinds of things in life is fuel for my work.

BY DIETER DEBRUYNE

1. Tell us about your approach to photography. How it all started? What are your memories of your first shots? 

Maybe it all started very young when I was playing with my mother’s broken camera – it looked like a spy-camera, I loved it. Maybe it all started when I received my first camera, a Polaroid – the one I still work with – at 8 years old. Maybe it all started when I started studying photography at La Cambre. We were asked to do self portrait work – one picture had to be naked. I found it a bit hypocritical so I did only naked self portraits throughout that year, and continued with a different kind of self portrait until recently even though it’s not my main preoccupation anymore… To me photography still very instinctive. I always liked technologies but I’m not technical. I can barely think of a project and then realize it. So I have no plan: the beginning of a series has always been an unexplained desire, a mishap, a surprise. For ‘Polvere,’ I wanted a red portrait of a girl, and that dark process appeared; for my very first self portraits, I found the negatives I had let hanging to dry at school, few hours later… in the trash! They were all scratched. I kept them like that. That’s how I work. I let things go. I’m focused on my sensations more than on the subjects. I have never cared about the subjects or people I photographed, I must admit. Everything, me included, is there to serve.

2. How did your research evolve with respect to those early days?

I concentrate in my research on light surrounded by darkness. I continue to work on photography as the medium of desire, as an open door to ourselves or the human condition, always using fiction or a troubled reality. And I’m still attracted by the skin of things, by the surface. To me surface is everything, there’s nothing else. Better deal with it. In the case of photography, it’s certainly true… Oh yes, and heads are disappearing… that’s new.

3. What do you think about photography in the era of digital and social networking?

We all know anybody can do a good picture – and share it. But as always…what I would call art is about perseverance, stubbornness and individuality.
That being said, it’s obviously easier now to submit your work to the whole wide world but nothing replaces face to face contact. For keeping updated and staying in touch the internet is fantastic. Networking is an incredible tool.

4. About your work now. How would you describe your personal research in general?

As I said, subject doesn’t matter. Nor time, nor place. I can do portraits, landscapes, … There is no right place or right moment – I am that place and moment. My job is to be ready. What matters to me is how I can transform things to make them appear more meaningful, to transmute the material. I think light can only really be seen in the dark. I think we are still a sum of cells reacting to pleasure and displeasure and I’m ok to talk to that part of us. But I’m also looking for a deeper level of understanding of both the image and beauty – and that road has to be traveled alone. I’m only suggesting. So maybe my work can seem hermetic sometimes…

5. Do you have any preferences in terms of cameras and format?

No. But I like quick photography. That’s the way I work, with a 4x5 inch camera or a Polaroid – same way.

6. Tell us about your latest projects?

I have two projects going on. ‘Polvere’ and ‘Deserts’. ‘Polvere’ is a dark series that develops itself like a serie noire, in a kinda catastrophic atmosphere. Lazy bodies, skin, semi-abandonned landscapes, closed doors or gloomy hallways. It’s very dark, burned, not funny at all, there is no escape. I like the laziness of the characters, there is absolutely no action. As if they were consenting to go along with that world. But why? ‘Deserts’ is a mix of pictures and texts. Pictures are made during Skype sessions with men, I photograph their naked torsos, or more. There is no physical criteria. That project is a continuation of the ‘Figures’ series (pictures of a woman’s naked back - me) but here the idea was more to attract and repel, to question desire and attractiveness of men’s bodies, but I think it’s evolving. The screen is becoming an observation box. Texts are not clear about the beginning of each story. Does the woman want it to happen? That project is subtitled “this is about love, sex, relationships”. I would make a book of it.

7. Is there any contemporary artist or photographer, even if young and emerging, who influenced you in some way?

Of course, I’m aware of the work of Cindy Sherman, Sophie Calle or Dirk Braeckman. And we can certainly see some influence - they are inspiring.

But in general, I’m more sensitive to movies, music or other live performances than to photography. The movie director Joao Cesar Monteiro, the poet Mario Benedetti, or ‘Le métier de vivre’ by Cesare Pavese were very more nutritious to me but not as a visual influences.

And yes, young people are very influential to me, they can do everything and are better trained to be “multifunctional” (communication, all the environments of an artistic practice). Am I old?? So yes, I steal everything I find interesting and use it for my own development.

8. Three books of photography that you recommend? 

- ‘Leçon de photographie’, Stephen Shore
- ‘Instant Light’, Andreï Tarkovsky
- ‘Ping Pong conversations, Alec Soth and Francesco Zanot’

9. Is there any show you’ve seen recently that you find inspiring?

Well it was last summer actually! Extra Fort at Recyclart, Brussels, two photographers projecting and presenting their work. They continue to do that kind of meeting regularly. It was Gert Jochems and Stefan Vanthuyne. Very interesting.

10. Projects that you are working on now and plans for the future?

‘Polvere’ and ‘Deserts’ are still in progress though I partially showed ‘Polvere’ already. I’ll have a group exhibition in Gent mid-May. The rest is under discussion. But I’m looking for opportunities outside of our beloved but small Belgium.

11. How do you see the future of photography in general evolve?

More and more documentary. Until we realize that’s not the ultimate way to understand people and people’s lives. A generalization of the understanding of the relative truth concept. The center of the world is definitely not central Europe anymore and for a long time. Mixed media. My crystal ball is turning black.

BY SHEUNG YIU

If it is not for his name printed in big bold font on the exhibition panel, I would not have recognised it is Zhang Xiao’s work that is showing in the gallery. Zhang has abandoned his signature Chinese portraits and landscapes and entered a new arena of conceptual photography. Walking through the gallery, none of the work is visually reminiscent of his acclaimed landscape series ‘Coastline’, which gives audience a glimpse of the fantastical China in the midst of rapid urbanisation. This time in ‘About My Hometown’, his third exhibition at Blindspot Gallery, he continued exploring the same motif, but zooming in to his family.

The emerging photographer is well known for his ability to catch people and object at the wrong state, producing surreal imagery. In ‘They’, Zhang showed secular Chongqing citizens at a moment of euphoric leisure. In ‘Coastline’, he travelled 18.000 kilometres along the Chinese coastline to photograph the surreal landscapes he encountered.

The photographer exhibited his recent projects, including ‘Eldest Sister’, ‘Relatives’ and ‘Living’, which showed the transition of the photojournalist-turned-artist’s approach towards photography. Just like his contemporary, he began exploring conceptual photography, putting down his Holga and making images without one. For ‘Eldest Sister’ and ‘Relatives’, Zhang scanned old studio portraits of his relatives and composite portraits of his eldest sister. He later printed them into mural-sized photographs, presenting a visual mockery of the cringe worthy results when consumerism-driven aesthetic meets clumsy digital photo editing techniques.

In ‘Living’, Zhang incorporates performance art into his photography, taking daily self-portraits with newspaper from his travelling city as a prove of his existence - a practice municipal government required for his mother and her fellow migrant workers to claim pension from authority at her hometown.

I suggest ditching any preconception of Zhang’s work before going to the show. In his latest exhibition, Zhang became an image curator, collecting images that illustrate an modern nostalgic relationship and ideological conflict between their rural birthplace and newly inhabited urban cities - a collective sentiment unique to urbanizing China.

Three Sisters Installation view at Blindspot Gallery

1. What was your first camera? What was your first memory with photography?

After high school graduation, in the summer before university. I discovered a vintage 135 analog camera at home, which was a gift to my family, never used before. I fell in love with photography after toying with the camera for a while and began taking photos throughout my college years. I also have a cousin who open a photo studio, but he did not teach me anything about photography
I started in Shandong, taking pictures of landscapes, sunsets, trees and animals in my hometown. I kept doing that until the second year in college, at which I went online. I saw various works from peers and international photographers on forums. That opened my eyes to photography and its possibilities.

2. I know that you studied architecture in university. How did you became a photojournalist?

I became a hardcore photography fanboy. After my freshman year, I decided to work in the photo industry. I found a photojournalist job at a local newspaper (‘The Chongqing Morning Post). I was good for me, work was easy. I got to earn money and took pictures.

3. How is your general research process for your projects?

When I started photographing ‘They’ back in 2006, I did not have any solid theme. I photographed everyday for two years. The series was a result of editing and looking back at the two years of photographs. I do not start with a motif, I find one after shooting indiscriminately. I finished my series as I worked. Work was really easy, I finished after two minutes.

4. Your acclaimed series ‘They’ and ‘Coastline’ showed viewers a humoured side of the Chinese and a fantastical Chinese landscapes, as if it is seen through foreign eyes. Is China an eccentric place to you? Does China have its own reality?

Just like what you have said, China is absurd to me at times. I was a bystander the whole time shooting ‘They’ in Chongqing. Sometimes I think I am just another foreigner in the city. I had never been there. I did not know the place. My hometown (a village in Shandong) is the only place I know throughout my childhood and adolescence. When I arrived at Chongqing, I recorded whatever is surreal to me with my camera.
It is nonsensical. Sometimes, you walk on a road and something will appear in a wrong place or an unnatural state, but it continue to exist in a way that is incomprehensible. That is what I liked to photograph.

5. How long did you prepare for the lengthy journey you embarked on to shoot ’Coastline’?

I thought about it for years. When I quit my job, I bought a camera and some film and went on a trip. I did not have much money. After half a year, I ran out of money and was looking for jobs again. I never thought I would win awards at the turmoil of my life. I won some grants and was elevated.
I stayed as a distanced observer on the 18,000 km of coastlines I travelled. I could go deep and stay a year for each place I had been, but that would take a decade to finish my project. I spent two days per location, ‘I shoot and go’. I could stay until the perfect moment and wait for the perfect shot but the projects would entail a different story.

6. In your latest projects, you turned your lens back on your family. What made you do so?

My two previous series can quite wholly portray the modern cityscapes of China. I do not see a reason to repeat what I have been doing. I was viewing the issue from a macroscopic scope - a ‘plane’, now I work from a point, going back to my hometown. I think it may give my audience a clearer vantage point to visualise the transition China is going through.

7. ‘Eldest sister’ is very different from your work, thematic-wise and aesthetic-wise. You edited the face of your sister on what seems to be cliche studio portraits. To me, I see a mockery on a prevalent Chinese photographic aesthetic. What is the idea behind the project?

Partially. I discovered some photos at my eldest sister’s house, composite portraits that she paid to get done by local photo studios. I scanned them and printed them out in mural sized prints. I have evolved from direct photography, I think that would be my exhibition more diverse, but I will continue to illuminate my idea through images.

Foreigners and people living in the urban area can immediately tell the portraits are poorly edited with kitsch colours. It is simply an eyesore. But to my sister who is a villager, the composites are perfectly done. There is a huge difference of aesthetic standards between city dwellers and villagers, both are supported by huge number of people. I would say the ‘villagers aesthetic’ followers slightly outnumbered the rest .Their living environment and experience determine their photographic aesthetics. The project opens a discourse on visual beauty. (Is this practice popular in the village) Yes, and considered very classy indeed. The technicians at the photo studios swap the face of my eldest sister with that of a model using computer softwares. (So everyone is fine with the result? even the technicians?) They all think it looked fine. These photos are their longing to a lifestyle, their longing to beauty, to fashion and to travel. Most villagers have not been to a prairie or even Beijing, so posing against a studio background of landscapes and famous monuments somehow console them.

8. How does Chinese first come into contact with photography?

Through photo studio. Many Chinese still do not own a camera. One of my vivid childhood memories is flipping through my family album and discovering family portraits of my sisters and cousins, all taken from the same photo studio, posing against the same background, even after decades.

9. Moving on, what is your plan?

I will continue to explore this motif: hometown and may include installation work in the future.

10. Which photographers inspire you?

There are too many, I cannot tell. Master photographers and peers both have combined influence to my work. They are all important sources of inspiration.
I liked Diana Arbus and documentary photography when I was in high school. I still love her work but not as passionately. Different photographers inspire me in different stages of my career.

BY NATALYA REZNIK

I got in touch with Dmitry Lookianov this spring.
He contacted me seeking an external reviewer for his diploma in Rodchenko Art School in Moscow.
Dmitry said that I should look at his works before agreeing to do a review, “Probably, you won’t like it!”, he said.
I looked at his photos, they were astonishingly beautiful.
Moreover, the topic of his series was really close to my own early project “Needful Things” and so I agreed to write a review.
Dmitry was born in Krasnodar, Russia, in 1983.
Since 2000 he is based in Moscow.
He studied at Rodchenko Art School in Moscow (Valeri Nistratov’s Workshop, “Documentary Photography”).
His diploma project “Instant Tomorrow” won a Parmigiani Spirit Award as one of the best student’s works.
Lookianov also won an artist residence in Switzerland, where he is going to shoot his next project.
The project “Instant Tomorrow” is to be published as a limited edition book soon in Germany (Peperoni Books, Berlin).

Metaphysical problems of the thing were initially posed in ancient aesthetics by Plato and Aristotle as well by the presocratics. Plato has made the most important discovery in the history of philosophy: there is an idea (eidos) of the whole world in general and of each thing in particular. Our material world is created as a reflection of the ideas of things, of their “ideal models”.

It seems like in the contemporary globalized world the ideas of Plato have been transformed into relationships between the original and its copy. A branded original corresponds to the “Eidos” of the thing, whereas a Chinese copy produced in its image and likeness by an unknown worker on a godforsaken factory becomes the thing itself. It is as far from the original as a shadow on the wall of a cave from the object which casts it.

The photographer Dmitry Lookianov approaches the problem of globalization and universalisation of the world from an unique perspective - he shoots Moscow suburbs and its high-rise buildings. Could it be something in the world that is less romantic? Nevertheless, he manages to mystify these demystified surroundings, reducing it to the hospital-like, sterile photoshopped substance. It looks like it is the very Baudrillard’s “schizofunctional” world, full of simulacra - “for any operation there is - there must be - a corresponding object, and if none exists then one must be invented” (Le Système Des Objets, Jean Baudrillard).

Ideally smooth futuristic high-rise buildings in photos of Lookianov are full of gadgets of different types, promising to a human being an eternal youth, health and beauty. These are almost analogs of “magical objects” (Vladimir Propp) from Russian fairy tales. However instead of Apples of Youth there appears Chinese magical face massager, the Cap of invisibility turns into a magnet mask and instant noodles materialize on the magic tablecloth.

Gadgets give us an illusion of control, help to forget for a while about neurosis, creating a pleasant world with a smell of some medicine and sterility, the world of simulacra, where each problem - aging, illness, death - could be solved. It seems like heroes of Lookianov are in all seriousness busy with an important work - they are looking at these “magical objects”, trying them on, waiting for the effect, paying attention to their own sensations.

A believe in gadgets and magical objects are compared by the photographer with a religious believe. He puts together two almost compositionally identical shoots. The advertisement pictures of the future created by him look ideal: dispassionate and experienced consumers, inhabitants of the future, are frustrated only by the permanent desire of pureness, longing for relaxation and ideal skin without any imperfections.

The photographer’s gaze is remote and distant. There is an overwhelming space between him and his heroes. Even though he adopts in the project a visual language of advertisement images, he remains behind the scenes, ironic and critical. One may ask towards whom? Towards this society of pain-free robots, who are interested in surfaces of their bodies only? Towards the eternal and non-rational believe in magic? Towards the neurosis and frustration in big cities, requiring long-time group psychotherapy? Or may be to the feeling of emptiness - emptiness from sensations, thoughts, movement and goals? All of his absurd and photographically perfect shoots are full of emptiness. Nonetheless, at the end of the day, the photographer himself doesn’t manage to stay the observer only.

Despite his own desire to stay outside of the scene, he is becoming involved into the game “with gadgets”, where the role of the main gadget plays his own camera. Indeed, it is well-known that any modern “magical object” stops time and aging much less effective than photography itself.

BY BÄRBEL PRAUN

1. A new book of yours has been published recently, also you have a group show in Vienna right now showing excerpts of your series ‘Higley’ and ‘Haboob’, congratulations! Can you tell us a little what the story is about in your latest book ‘Cubic Feet/Sec’?

34 years ago when I was 9 years old my father and I went rafting through the Grand Canyon. For this trip I was given my first camera from my father, a Kodak Instamatic 110 and 3 cartridges of film to document the trip. This trip was so monumental for my father that he decided that white-water rafting would become his passion and I had the luck of growing up on the rivers from Arizona to Canada. Nothing compares though to the Grand Canyon and I was lucky enough to raft this part of the Colorado River with my father and friends 9 times in the last 34 years. Each trip was photographed, each time trying to catch the essence of the place, which we all know photography can’t do. This edit consist of images from all 9 trips, geographically in the right order but with time thrown out the window; on one page I am 11 years old, on the next I am 45, then 16. The idea is to explore time on 2 levels – the Grand Canyon never changing, at least not in my lifetime, but at the same time, we see my life unfold at an alarmingly quick rate.

2. When you open the inside pages of the cover you see an image of a young man in the front, probably you, taking a picture between rocks and water and your father doing the same, focusing on a small waterfall scene, in the back. Both of you have taken many pictures over the years during your trips -your father has even taken notes- attempting to document your experiences in the best way possible - and later confessing your constant failure of telling to your utter satisfaction what you’ve observed, perceived, how you felt like. Please tell us about this process.

We always had these grand and noble visions of being able to share with our friends and family the elements of adventure and awe of the Grand Canyon and for years we really thought we were doing it through slide-shows and photographs which we made on each trip. I’m sure most who saw the slide-shows came away entertained but I was never really happy with how weak photography was as sharing the experience. Now, 25 years into thinking about photography on an entirely different level, and dedicating my life to image making, I realize that it wasn’t photography’s fault but it was my fault for not understanding what photograph couldn’t do. This book is my realization that there is no successful document which we made along the way, but putting it all together like this, and seeing all of the different cameras and stages of my photographic interests, this gets at least close to illustrating this failure.

3. This book obviously is different from your other ones. One reason might be the fact that you are personally and emotionally involved in another way. Can you tell us something about the process of evolving the book, your approach to content as well as formal aspects?

Of all of my books, this one took the longest to edit and conceive, which is funny because I have been looking at the images for 3 decades at least, one would think I know them by now. The hardest part of the process was not figuring out what I wanted to do but figuring out what I DIDN’T want to do; an archive like this which is so personal can go in so many different ways, many of those ways are much too sentimental, I wanted to avoid this and make something more universal about experience and memory and time passing. I think this book has been in the making since 2009 when I set out to sort all our Kodachrome slides and save them from destruction in cardboard boxes in the garage. Literally thousands of slides were combined with early Instamatic snap-shots, medium format negatives, large-format negatives, even digital GoPro video stills from the last trip in 2013, so the process of getting everything into a form where I could start seeing everything together was, in itself, very complex. Then starts the painful process of separating the memories and the experiences which the photos brought back from the actual photo itself, being able to edit something so personal was actually impossible, I had a lot of help.

4. If one looks for images of the Grand Canyon online, one finds hundreds of photos that show the enormous dimensions of the area, mostly shot from above, with spectacular, sublime views of a landscape in sundown light. In your book you see your father and yourself right in the middle of the Colorado River, close to the water in a boat, near the cliffs, exploring the landscape by jumping into the water, climbing around in caves. It feels as if you wanted to take us with you on your boat, to share your trips’ adventures in order to experience ourselves on an immediate level. Your archive of your trips must be huge and - I can only guess - also contained some of these classical views I’ve mentioned above. To what extent does the discourse about the perception of landscape, landscape as a society’s construct play a role in your projects generally and in ‘Cubic Feet/Sec’ particularly?

It wasn’t until I was way into the edit that I realized that I wasn’t interested in the classic views of the canyon, I’m sure a lot of people might be disappointed if they are looking for the coffee-table grand canyon book. I think the reason for this is I wanted to highlight the tangible, human part of the story and the caves became a big part as they are these mysterious little hide-aways that you can’t see from the rim of the canyon looking in. When you are down there you realize that the view from the top is very abstract, untouchable, but when you are on the river, literally thousands of feet into the earths crust, is this idea of crawling around in small side canyons and caves a very moving experience. Much more physical than staring out at a grand vista.

5. Rather in the beginning of the book there’s a spread I really like (and which describes a familiar situation for any traveler): two hands holding a map showing the route of the river you are going to journey down. Also the title ‘Cubic Feet/Sec’ and subtitle ‘The rate at which flowing water is measured in a river’ are hints for your attempt to locate and visualize your experiences and memories. What were your thoughts about that?

The title came out of wanting to find a way of measuring things, and the number of cubic feet of water which have passed through the canyon in my lifetime is astronomical, even inconceivable.

6. Let’s change the topic now: together with the Austrian photographer Paul Kranzler you recently started a blog called ‘The Drake Equation’. How did this collaboration start and what is the project about?

‘The Drake Equation’ is about these amazing, beautiful massive telescopes we discovered standing in the middle of nowhere in West Virginia. We quickly realized that there is a life going on around these scopes and we went to discover it for ourselves and dove into what is our most intense series at the moment. The telescopes, in the National Radio Quiet Zone, where no wi-fi or electromagnetic interference is allowed, draw the top astro-physicists and astronomers from around the world to this remote region of WV where they live side by side with local families which have been in this Appalachian Mountain area for hundreds of years, deer and bear hunting and maple syrup harvesting.
Now, in the last years since wi-fi technology has entered mainstream life in the US, many so-called “Electromagnetic Hypersensitive” people are moving into the area exactly for the reason that it is wi-fi free. ‘The Drake Equation’, created in 1961, is an assumption of our chances of finding extra-terrestrial life from other star systems. As astro-physicist spend their days using this equation and the telescopes to search the edge of the universe looking for signs of life, a parallel set of systems and codes define the lives of the families which have been thriving for generations in Green Bank, along with the new settlers who have arrived to flee the technology age.

7. You have already lived in Austria for many years now, most of your projects take place in America, though. Do you consider the distance as useful for your work, does it sharpen your view on things going on in your homecountry?

For sure, I never would have made ‘Higley’ or ‘Haboob’ if I was still living in Arizona, and those are, for me, my most important bodies of work. I simply wouldn’t have noticed Higley, Arizona disappearing if I had been there all of the time. I realized long ago that most all of what I am interested in my work has a very strong, if not always obvious, autobiographical edge, and I think this element has been heightened by the fact that I don’t live in the place, or even the culture, which makes up the landscape of my childhood memories.

8. Last question of mine: do you have a recent ‘Top 3 favorite photo books’ you would like to share with us?

Where to start….these are the 3 great ones on top of my pile right now, that I look at from time to time, yet to file them away to the shelves…

- Tohoku by Hans Christian Schink
- ‘An Atlas of War and Tourism in the Caucasus by Rob Hornstra/Arnold v. Bruggen
- ‘Morning Sun’ by Mtej Sitar.

Andrew Phelps is an American photographer who has been living in Europe since 1990. His work is influenced by the cross-cultural lifestyle he now leads, dividing his time between the deserts of Arizona and the Alps of Austria. His website: http://www.andrew-phelps.com/ and his blog about special edition photography books: http://buffet.andrew-phelps.com/.

The exhibition ‘America America’ at Anzenberger Gallery in Vienna is still open until 31/07/2015, a group show with Bruce Wrighton, Brandon Thibodeaux, Herman van den Boom. You can follow the project ‘The Drake Equation’ here.

INTERNATIONAL PHOTO CONTEST

The nutrition and the resources of our planet are issues of vital urgency. For this we decide to focus on the themes of 2015 Universal Exhibition ‘Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life’, and to launch our own campaign ‘Feed a Different Imagination’. The campaign is free and open to all photographers who want to contribute to inspire our need to deepen and discuss these issues.

AWARDS
It is an opportunity for an important debate, to which we can contribute with our personal visions and stories. We know that images often have the power to engage and move the audience, capture their attention, and to reach deeper than that of the spoken word. We ask the international community of photographers to provide their own interpretation of the Thematic Routes chosen by EXPO 2015. Each of the Thematic Routes correspond to an award category, of which there are 5.

1. Food and Cultures
The story of humankind is a key theme for understanding the practices of land management. There are also references to exploitation and the degradation consequent to colonization. The history of food, through its customs and traditions, highlights the attributes of individual populations, from their agricultural and farming techniques to how foods have changed and developed over time.

2. Food and Health
The food is the basic need of our species. And yet we know malnutrition, lack of water, poverty, pollution afflict a large proportion of the world population. Where there is no shortage of food instead diets, obesity, poor eating habits, allergies, intolerances and other paradoxical discomforts are spreading.

3. Food and Perspectives
How shall we eat in the future? The mechanization of the agro-industrial sector shows us more and more controlled and over-produced crops. At the same time we see a wide increase in the use of sophisticated technologies. Across a large scope of massive urbanization, the future perhaps demands a need for a return to the land, to local and community management of the resources needed to nutrition.

4. Food and Equity
How is it possible to make humanity more sensitive to maintaining a better balance between food production and natural resources? The main focus of Expo Milano 2015 is nutrition, yet the issue of access to the resources of the planet puts emphasis on the need for greater equity and therefore human rights.

5. Food and Landscapes
The food is not only a necessity. It represents a potential expression of lands, territories, tastes and flavors, colors, nature and biodiversity. Food is therefore also unique to any particular landscape and the way we inhabit it.

JURY
We have designated an International Jury including David Chancellor, Sasha Rudenski, David Marlé, Heidi Romano, Scott Dietrich. Each juror assigns one of five awards. Read more about the Jury here.

We have invited Steve Bisson, curator of EXPO CAMPAIGN, to select some of the best works submitted for a special publication entitled ‘Feed a Different Imagination’! Read more about the publication here.

Expo Campaign will support the END POLIO NOW project by Rotary International. As the Italian journalist Antonio Lubrano with your support to EXPO Campaign you can help this important initiative.

SUBMISSION
To participate:
1. Read the photo competition RULES from here.
2. Submit your images ( max 3 ) with a statement to info@expocampaign.com.
3. Wait for our quick feedback.

DEADLINE
01 september 2015

CONTACT
info@expocampaign.com
www.expocampaign.com

LAURA BÖÖK. WALKING ON RIVERS

‘Alphabet’ a book by Ezio D’AgostinoBY FRANCESCA ORSIThe book...

August Sander / Michael Somoroff: Absence of SubjectBY DIANA...

NATALYA REZNIK. MAGICAL REALISM

SASHA TAMARIN. STUCK BETWEEN TWO HOMELANDS

LAU WAI. A MELANCHOLIC UNDERTONE

LISETTA CARMI. I PHOTOGRAPHED TO UNDERSTAND

VERSUS THE END. THE CONVERSATION CAN BEGIN

PCA THESIS EXHIBITION “BETWEEN LATE AND SOON”

GEORGES SALAMEH. PROVOKING THE UNEXPECTED

AAPO HUHTA. THE DOCUMENTARY ELEMENT

ALLAN GRAINGER. LONDON TABLEAUX

ÍCARO LIRA. EXILE PROJECT

MARLEEN SLEEUWITS. DEFORMING SPACES

JONAS BENDIKSEN. TO BE PART OF THE DISCUSSION

AURORE DAL MAS. TO TRANSMUTE THE MATERIALS

ZHANG XIAO. ABOUT MY HOMETOWN

INSTANT TOMORROW BY DMITRY LOOKIANOV. A REVIEW

ANDREW PHELPS. A LIFE UNFOLD

EXPO CAMPAIGN. FEED A DIFFERENT IMAGINATION