Prior to your recent move to Switzerland you lived on Canada’s west coast. Please talk about this transition and what it means to your photographic work.
Scott Conarroe (SC): It’s funny. I grew up in British Columbia. I’ve lived in and out of Vancouver since 1996. I’m habitual faculty at Emily Carr. I’m very much of the west yet almost never identified with it. I tend to be seen as from Toronto or maybe the east coast where I went to grad school.
Early on though -like a lot of Vancouver photo kids- I imagined I either had to defy or defer to the local “Photoconceptualist” brand. It’s a big deal there. And it’s a valuable conversation, but I’m interested in aesthetics and documentary pursuits too; in galavanting beyond such a specific discourse from time to time. Having said that, though, the work I love most does enjoy defending its positions. That’s what the west coast did to me: it instilled cerebral mechanisms in a pursuit that’s essentially about looking.
My wife is Swiss. We’ve lived between British Columbia and there enough to be at home both places. I don’t foresee a dramatic shift in how I work, but I don’t mind surprises. My shtick isn’t particularly biographical. Narrative and perspective feed into each other though. I married outside of Canada; so did my brother. Our parents and grandparents are from various places. On the other hand, my family in Switzerland is rooted in a city that predates the Romans. Perhaps that explains why my landscapes are more explicitly about time these days.
Your previous landscape work has largely been based upon the idea that the landscape is shaped by changes in technology and transportation. Please comment.
SC: That’s accurate. A fussier, finer way of putting it is landscapes are conceived of differently as we occupy and move through them differently. My series ‘By Rail’ is about railways and photography and North America; basically contemporaneous developments. Trains compressed distance. Photos abstracted space. European settlement of The New World re-defined Western civilization. This work can be read as visual or as a treatise on railways or landscape or history, and inevitably it’s about the moment the pictures were made in too. It’s got a nostalgic bent, but it’s nostalgia for that present when we first grasped “peak oil” and could’ve responded to that insight, when a woman or mixed-race man was going be president of the United States. Change seemed inevitable even though it wasn’t. History and hope and transformation and inertia and disgrace were strewn together across the landscape. Its companion project, ‘By Sea’, is about similar things, but the thread is our coastline perimeter. ‘The Great Eastern’ looks at China, its confidence and its complications against the backdrop of high-speed rail expansion. Ideals get manifested in landscapes. Technology and transportation -what we do and where we go- say a lot about the things we value.
In the late 19th century Timothy O’Sullivan photographed the American West as a sublime and pre-industrialized landscape. Please comment on this in relation to your pictures of Glaciers from ‘Frontiere, Frontiera, Grenze’
SC: “Sublime and pre-industrialized” butts up against Romanticism. There The Sublime is beauty shot through with vague terror. Up to now I’ve been riffing on Caspar David Friedrich’s vertigo and alpine ennui, but Timothy O'Sullivan and Carleton Watkins and “unknown photographer, unknown date” definitely overlap. They were photographing more or less alone past the edge of civilization with glass plates and a darkroom tent. I used to just accept that the era’s technologies made their pictures haunting, but maybe that’s the aesthetic of being profoundly vulnerable… Nonetheless, Romanticism was reacting in part against industrialization, the geological surveys O'Sullivan was employed by were instruments of its expansion, and now both are largely preamble to our present conversation that is the 21st century.
‘Frontière, Frontiera, Grenze’ is about the moveable borders Alps nations devised in response to glacial melting and watershed drift. Permafrost thaw at high elevations is causing the landscape to disintegrate; boundaries established in the last century no longer correspond to the terrain. Switzerland, Italy, Austria and France have unfixed sections of their borders until the landscape “re-stabilizes”. When their glaciers are extinct in a few decades, new borders will be drawn to honour the various treaties. It’s an elegant acknowledgement that this moment is incalculable. And these places are truly beautiful. They seem timeless and pristine, but they’re very much expressions of a post-industrial atmosphere. The vague terror of paradigm shift is what makes them sublime.
What was the process of discovery that led you to turn this traditional and scenic landscape into a project?
SC: I like classic obvious tropes. People already know them. Without having to unpack a motif, we can skip right to digressions. I was looking for a topic that could accommodate a range of conversations. I was hoping for something that might help me integrate into Europe a little more. And not long before, I’d come to embrace a category of pretty landscapes I’d have been shy about. I think I came across this four-year-old article in someone’s pile of English language magazines, and moveable borders became a fitting conceptual beard for a scenery project.
What are your formal interests in this recent Glacier project?
SC: Ice + rocks is a limited vocabulary, and the spaces I’m looking at are rather vast. The first pictures were kind of boring, too claustrophobic. Stitching exposures into panoramas were one possibility for escape. I decided that since the images were being constructed anyhow, I’d use the opportunity to get into shooting digitally. The pictures I’m building now are very wide compositions from dozens of captures. They pan across and tilt up and down. I’m working this fish-eye view into “credible straight photos”. You’d have to turn your head to see these views in reality. They’re kind of like flattened museum dioramas. I like their surfeit of information (300dpi at more than a meter tall) as well as the series’ curious ambience. One formal delight is the flip from sweeping vista to dense detail, and then pulling out again when you spot a tiny mountaineer or hut.
Even though the digital back renders twilight different than film, I still love shifts of dawn and dusk. Rather than long exposures and reciprocity failure and colour blending, these pictures are made from distinct visual units. Sometimes I adjust exposures as the light changes; top and bottom can describe very different scenes. Sometimes both hemispheres of twilight appear in the same sky; colours shift across the horizon as well as up from it. I guess another formal interest is downplaying these “tricks” so they don’t define the pictures.
You have an exhibit coming up next year in Switzerland of some of the Glacier work. How will it be displayed?
SC: I’m excited about this show. Photographica FineArt is pairing ‘Frontière, Frontiera, Grenze’ with some glacier works by Vittorio Sella. For those who don’t know his work think Timothy O'Sullivan times Edmund Hillary. He is awesome. In a way my pictures have a lot in common with his stiff men on plump glaciers, but there’s also a world of difference between what we’re seeing. I don’t know if the works will be separated or interspersed, or how they’ll be sized. I’m editioning FFG at a larger scale than I’ve done before, but for Photographica and Stephen Bulger Gallery where it’ll also show next year, a smaller exhibition suite might make sense.
A book of your landscapes titled ‘By Rail and By Sea’ was very recently published. Please talk about your experience of seeing the work in this context.
SC: I’m glad to see it resolved. My first book has been a long, slow process. A ‘By Rail’ publication was in the works in 2009, but the institution spearheading it malfunctioned. I kept working, and ‘By Sea’ just tumbled out. They’re both substantial projects. If I were less obscure or they hadn’t happened in such quick succession, I might have wanted a comprehensive tome for each. They define each other though. They’ve got a nice take on symmetry: lines of infrastructure and a line geography going across and around respectively, allusions to an industrial past and an uncertain future, degrees of abjectness against rather orthodox standards of beauty. ‘By Rail and By Sea’ is a very good introduction to my practice. Of course it’d be great to be past the introduction stage, but I’m okay with being more tortoise than hare. The book is modest-sized, but the edit feels good. There’s a lot in each plate. I’m hoping not overwhelming people with page count will encourage slower readings.
On the Facebook event page of Parasite’s latest show, the curatorial statement ends with ‘The content of this program does not reflect the views of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region,’ as if the title of the exhibition is not controversial enough.
Hong Kong is often referred to as a melting pot of cultures, a city that can integrate even the most extremely disparate ideas: east and west, traditional and modern, colonial and post-colonial, this in-betweeness perpetuates every aspect of the city, from architecture, culture to its social representations. The postcolonial city thrives on this conflicted duality, yet it also brought about tension and ambiguity, making the search of identity an eternal motif for artists and writers to ponder upon. This is becoming especially visible in recent years when political and social intervention from Chinese government has become ever more apparent and flagrant. The discussion of election method of Hong Kong’s Chief Executive in 2013 that led to the Umbrella Movement last year has revealed many unsolved conflicts after the handover and the frailty of ‘One Country Two Systems’ that granted Hong Kong legislative and judicial autonomy.
Since the handover in 1997, citizens of the orphaned cite are left to contemplate their identity in the confrontational yet inevitable relationship with her estranged birth mother. Chinese government was eager to rekindle the bond, yet Hong Kongers were not ready to adopt the ‘Chinese’ identity, seeing the country as less culturally advanced. 18 years went by, Chinese government grew impatient. During the last two years of debate surrounding the election of Chief Executive, it repeatedly asserted its political superiority, insisting that Chief Executive must be screened by the government to ensure the nominee is, as stated by the then-chairman of the Hong Kong SAR Basic Law Committee, Qiao Xiaoyang (喬曉陽), ‘persons who love the country and love Hong Kong.’
It is under this time and circumstances, during the critical transition of postcolonial Hong Kong, that makes the artworks in the recent exhibition ‘Imagine there’s no country, above us only our cities’ so interesting to look at. In the curatorial statement, Xixi’s (西西) novel My City (我城) was mentioned as an inspiration for the exhibition. The rise in social consciousness during the economic boom in the 70s portrayed in the book has now once again prevailed among the young generation, this time fuelled by a politically-charged frustration and postcolonial angst. A kind of social consciousness that forces them to search for a new paradigm to sort out their identity.
Yip Kin Bon’s ‘Speech from Qiao Xiaoyang on 24th March’ (2013) provides a good starting point into the discourse of this tension of identity. The collage consisted of 260 pieces of newspaper clippings, each includes photos of public figures or social events and an isolated Chinese character, recreates the whole statement by Qiao Xiaoyang on the criteria of Chief Executive Nominee. The whole piece, occupying the central spot of the gallery, offers an underlying social context for understanding the statement and its social implications, through comprehensive visual summary made up of photos from current social events.
Another work from Yip, ‘Absent of speech from Evening post series’, is newspaper cutout of press conferences. The artist manually removed the text and the person in the photos, leaving only the gooseneck microphone, creating frames after frames of empty speeches. The clippings, framed between two layers of clear glass, casts a hard shadow on the white background under the installation lighting, which further accentuates the emptiness of space and absence of politicians. The work is open to different interpretations, one may see it as a comment on weasel political words, impotent government officials or censorship , nonetheless, Yip’s work created a strong framework to start the conversation about Hong Kong identity from a social and political perspectives.
Not every artist portrayed the city’s story from a political angle, some drew inspirations from unique scenes of Hong Kong lifestyle, such as horse racing and Victoria Park, romanticising on these representations of Hong Kong identity. Mark Chung’s video installation, ‘Summers Without Fireworks’, recreated the annual firework celebration by playing footages of fireworks from last year’s show in several overhead TV screens. The artist built a temporary environment for audience to watch fireworks from an impossibly close distance, an experience that is rare to most Hong Kongers since private fireworks displays are illegal. Compared to the government-funded public fireworks display that happens several times a year, his video installation provides a less opulent yet more personal pyrotechnic experience.
Curator Jims Lam told me that most of the showpieces are made exclusively for the exhibition. These works are the result of several individual brainstorming and ideation sessions between him and the artists, which explore different approaches to portray the concept of identity in this city. Artists like Lau Wei and Eason Tsang seized this chance to experiment with new ideas. For Extract #3 and Graduation, Lau took images from her ongoing series ‘album’ and combined them with different pattern and shapes extracted from various passport she owned (which is common for Hong Kongers). One of her work has a UV layer of passport security pattern printed on it, an idea, the artist told me, that she wanted to try out for a long time.
Photographer Eason Tsang took a short break from photography and attempted videography this time. Aiming to document the interactions in Cha Chaan Tang, the artist tied a go pro camera on a mop and went mopping in the Hong Kong styled restaurant for several days.
The exhibition presented various interpretations of the city’s identity during the awakening of a new social consciousness. Jims Lam said it is intentional. ‘I wanted to present the complex concept through a collective dialogue of 12 artists, yet they hardly represent a conclusive theory to understand identity.’ He later pointed out that it is impossible to expect a exhibition to provide a solution to the current social environment, however that does not mean Hong Kongers should shy away from this discussion. Much like the city itself, the stories told in these exhibition are multifaceted, some are more profound and well-thought out, others are personal and subtle, but none is the definitive narrative.
INFO: Para Site Location: 22/F, Wing Wah Industrial Building, 677 King’s Road, Quarry Bay, Hong Kong Date of opening and closing: 01.08.2015 - 06.09.2015
Everything started when photography began to be observed as photography – as everyday photography, like an open phenomena. Behind the photography, made not by themselves, not belonging to themselves, or photography trying to hide itself, but the opposite, those demonstrating themselves to someone unknown, and in the end it isn’t important to whom; with tremendous force everything is merged into the ever-multiplying network. Our exhibition is about this convergence and the interconnected enchantment. The excesses, seized by accessible to the gaze space, overcome by individual possibilities of reception and acceptance, by the space of others – neighbors, strangers, anonymous people, by the world of things and desires – authors designate to themselves the game, more serious than which and complicated to present – define yourself across another game. Time and time again balancing between ‘we’ and ‘I’.
Avito became the most attractive for participants as a platform of investigation. It is a buying and selling service of already unneeded or new but unwanted in the future things, a meeting place of collective desires, of alien experiences and individual discovery. Even from the beginning photography had entered such a field – photostreams, in which art itself happens with viewers. Philosopher Philipp Lakoue Labarth speaks about the power of every great piece of art to “put aside” existence, to distance itself from being, making unknown and familiar – Unheimlich à la Freud, so that art finds itself as such, or more specific, so that it unexpectedly spots itself and it’s presence. The nature of social media’s photostreams, like that of Avito’s where supply and demand of subjects like household goods, search for work, search for love or sale of a home, forms through photography, as much materially as intimately with the point of lowering all barriers of translation of personal space in the field of visibility, so that that known in an unknown, alien but also shared, mesmerizes, scared, and captivates simultaneously; the impossibility to watch and impossibility to tear away your gaze. If one peers in, then everything is uncovered, like how if not everything becomes understandable, but much in the region where it is decided to cast one’s gaze.
Every participant of the exhibition defined the field of their personal interest, which is based in the responding flow of photo material, but continues in the setting of other questions. Although investigation of the photographs themselves is the most interesting task; how they are created, and which system of presentation and which goals the author is trying to show, what they translate and uncover, what erupts between the text of postings, department in which is situated illustrations uploaded by users, what happens with those who examine these images and what do professional photographers find inspiring in this collectively formed unique esthetic. The flow of images, already confirmed by their enormity, and that which their flow will be endless and updated, all serve as a hallucination of reality. And as a domain of art, or of a meeting that transforms all of it’s participants, this flow forms a space of shared imagination, like a dream, in which everything is ‘dreamt’ to one another and the work of the personal and the collective psyches takes places, their attraction and connected ecstasy. The partnership to this dream brings both the viewers and the participants in the flow of images closer, gives rise to the possibility to accept one another as the spontaneous affected opening of the possibility to find another in yourself – to feel like a direct part of a whole.
Flowers Gallery is pleased to present a solo exhibition by Derek Boshier, a pioneering artist of the 1960s British Pop movement. Boshier came to prominence as one of a generation of Pop artists to emerge at the Royal College, alongside David Hockney and Allen Jones, establishing a unique voice within the movement for his politicised critique of the prevailing consumer culture and mass media.
Curated by writer Paul Gorman and art critic and curator Guy Brett, the exhibition ‘Rethink/ Re-entry’ surveys the shifting emphasis of Boshier’s work from painting to more experimental means, re-examining the assemblages, collages, drawings, films, graphics and prints of the 1970s, alongside recent films and collages.
During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Boshier broke away from the traditions of painting, seeking alternative modes of production to respond to the proliferation of images in everyday life. Guy Brett compares Boshier’s concerns in the 1970s with those of the Independent Group, the interdisciplinary precursors of the Pop movement who included Eduardo Paolozzi, Richard Hamilton and architects, theorists and photographers.
Like the Independent Group, says Brett, Boshier focused on «the close connection of life and art, the question of the accessibility of art for the mass of people, the constant sensitivity to changing political and cultural conditions, the breaking down of the distinction between high art and popular culture…» as well as the embrace of new technologies.
Producing mixed media works incorporating photography, books, posters and films, Boshier adopted the language of contemporary media as a form of critique, operating both within and outside of the art world. Described by Paul Gorman as «an important, though unjustly overlooked, contribution to the development of contemporary British art practice», the provocative and experimental approaches of Boshier’s output of the 1970s were reflected within the gathering punk movement and also David Bowie’s work of the period. Featuring in the exhibition are original drawings from Boshier’s collaborations with The Clash on graphics for the ‘CLASH 2nd Songbook’, and his work with Bowie on the 1979 album ‘Lodger’.
Boshier’s 1973 film ‘Change’ is displayed in the lower gallery, along with three films from 2014, ‘Best Foot Forward; Did You See… That?’; and ‘Sometimes I Feel Like That’.
In ‘Change’, Boshier spliced sequences of still images from an installation of 200 works at Boshier’s Whitechapel Gallery retrospective of the same year. Consigned to a film canister after completion, it remained unopened for 38 years, until the rediscovery of the film in 2012 provoked Boshier’s desire to create new films using contemporary digital technologies.
In his recent film works, Boshier has utilised the immediacy of the iPad to capture the minutiae of quotidian experience and also mined imagery from media and entertainment sources, such as television and the pages of magazines. Boshier’s appropriative approach to filmmaking is closely related to his collage works, interweaving simultaneous (and often contradictory) narratives, connected by basic thematic structures. The theme of opposition or contrast can be seen in works such as ‘Two (About Duality)’ from 1974-5, a series of mixed media collages in which conflicting media images and text are displayed side by side. Similar dualism can be found in the conflated headlines of his re-drawn tabloid front page The Stun, (1979) in which the headline appears to read ‘QUEEN LIKES…/ VIOLENCE in Northern Ireland’; and within his film ‘Sometimes I Feel Like That’ (2014) which invokes oppositional emotional states, from extreme apprehension to pure joy.
Exhibited alongside the films are recent collages from ‘News from the Metropolis’, a series of hybridised erotic figures, which draw together fragmented images of the body from fashion magazines, department store underwear catalogues and pornographic magazines. Outlined heavily in ink and configured into graphic shapes, their bulky, angular forms are strikingly at odds with the erotic subject matter. The prostrated figures of Adam - ‘The Fall’ (2013), and ‘The Dance’ (2014) provide echoes of Boshier’s enduring ‘falling man’ motif (also used in his 1979 design for David Bowie’s ‘Lodger’ LP), a symbol of self-identification amid the de-humanising experience of mass culture.
The exhibition coincides with the publication of ‘Derek Boshier: Rethink/ Re-entry’ by Thames & Hudson, a definitive monograph on the artist’s work, edited by Paul Gorman with a foreword by David Hockney. Boshier’s life in art is traced in a series of essays by leading academics, critics and curators including writers David E. Brauer, Guy Brett, Jim Edwards, Christopher Finch, Paul Gorman, John A. Walker, Chris Stephens of Tate Britain and Professor Lisa Tickner of the Courtauld Institute.
Derek Boshier takes part in the BBC season of programmes: ‘BBC Four Goes Pop’ in August 2015. BBC Four has commissioned new channel idents by Derek Boshier, Peter Blake and Peter Phillips, to run throughout the season; and an episode of the documentary series ‘What Do Artists Do All Day?’, which follows a day with Boshier at his studio in LA.
In Gert Verbelen’s ‘The inner Circle of Europe’, (already by connoisseurs crowned as a young magnum opus), one encounters a quite new conceptual approach in Belgian documentary photography, ( not as imaginative as let’s say Max Pinckers, but nevertheless fresh and stout).
I myself am rearranging my bookshelves now, in order to get 3 Belgian trans-european photobooks nicely lined up. Namely: Gert Verbelen (‘The inner Circle’), Carl De Keyzer (’Before the Flood’) and Nick Hannes (‘Mediterranean’). Allow me to explain: Carl De Keyser travelled along almost all of the shores of Europe documenting a coastline endangered by global warming and thus portraying a Europe with a questionable future, Nick Hannes photographed the whole Mediterranean region, showing us the frontier between an old Europe and a very unstable middle East. Each of the 2 books approach major ‘geopolitical’ problems which Europe ought to be facing.
Gert Verbelen does the same, but in an opposite direction; he literally travels -to the heart - of every of all 18 countries of the European community. On doing this, Gert Verbelen unfolds a third problem; not as much the problem from without, but the problem from within. Gert Verbelen puts his eye at work in little villages at the heart of each of the countries. Gert Verbelen is also a graphic designer, so there’s no wonder the cover of the book already strikes you. On the cover and at the beginning of each chapter you find beautiful drawings, the outlines of all 18 countries connected by droplines, thus defining the very center-point of each of the countries. Needless to say, no majestic ‘grand place’ or monumental museums to be found there. More likely; cosy boondocks, typical dreary holes, charming dying villages. Rural exodus towards the cities, ageing population, and the ever growing lack of creative resilience in creating employment, even poverty sometimes, as well as intellectual and educational ‘disconnection’.
The book ‘The inner Circle of Europe’; a nice and thick 304 pages volume; a voyage to the heart of Europe, made me think about Michel Houellebecq’s ‘la carte et la territoire’. Not only because of the main map-art theme in the MH book ( it is about an artist who decides to become a successful conceptual artist by photographing details of Michelin-maps), but also because of the fact that Houellebecq tackles rural exodus in the book, and as it is a sci-fi novel, he takes the liberty to suggest the possibility of a future rehabilitation of rural villages with a returning local industry; in tourism, gastronomy, farming and employment in arts-and crafts, combined with an everpresent IT-economy which ties everything together. I think this idea is not so unlikely. With the by now ‘succeeded’ gentrification in European cities, prices of houses have astronomically risen. It might be utopian but still not so unlogical that certain numbers of the cities’ ‘bourgeois bohemians’ might go and re-populate these (not so) ‘far –off’ regions and realize startups there.
Michel Houellebecq also guides me towards the second part of this review. In the second part of ‘la carte et la territoire’ Jed, the artist-protagonist, takes up an August Sander-like project (although painted), depicting people in various contemporary professions. Gert Verbelen made me think about Sander as well, in the sense that- just like Sander did in 1929, Verbelen wants to show us the ‘face of our time’ in a very neutral Sander-like registration ( but translated in a modern color photography); in portraits, landscapes and objects. In each of the chapters lives a sense of urgency and incompleteness, what you see is what you get, there is nothing too much romanticized. How come? The photographer has stayed in each of the places for one week and has succeeded in entering people’s lives, working towards a ‘fly on the wall’ outlook. He is a visitor, not a tourist. Which gives him a mandate to make well deliberated, calm pictures ‘from within’. ( makes me think of Depoorter, Bieke).He also has an eye for detail, texture and color which have an iconic function in the booksetting. You can do the test and TiCoE becomes a playbook; open a random page, try to guess which of the countries you have entered. More about the deliberate ‘incompleteness’; well, it is important, because the storytelling needs an open ending, an open view, a logical inventory avoiding cliché, unbiased, non-nostalgic. The viewer can make up his/her own mind upon the state of Europe’s heart; will it die of sclerosis, or will it rejoice at rejuvenating fresh blood? This book is most certainly an opener for any decent debate on the manufacturability of a European future, on the necessity of European transition, and the many challenges that aren’t faced.
Published by Hannibal Publishing. Read more info HERE.
Since I discovered the work of photographer Linda Bournane Engelberth (Oslo, 1977) back in my teens, I’ve been enamored by the cinematic square frames covering socio-political topics. We met up in Oslo and talked about her methods of access, her ambivalence to social media and her career up until now.
What made you decide to become a photographer? How did your practice evolve?
Linda Bournane Engelberth (LBE): When I was eighteen I moved to Mexico and ended up staying there for two and a half years. At one point I was living with a Dutch photographer and she inspired me to get a camera. After acquiring one at the Mexican black market I started to do street photography.
I decided to return to Oslo to study photography there. At the start I didn’t know in what direction I wanted to go. After school I assisted a photographer that did commercials and fashion. That really didn’t work out; I was too concerned about how skinny and young the models were.
After finishing my studies I worked as a freelancer for a year, doing all the jobs I could get. Women magazines, real estate… I was a single mother and needed to pay my bills. But it’s so important to know that that’s not where you’re going – to know that you’ll at some point break away from that.
Later on I started working part time for Klassekampen (Norwegian left-oriented newspaper). It provides me the time I need to work on my own projects. I used a long time to find my own way of photographing. At some point I decided to spend half a year of shooting with no other intention than to find a visual approach. I watched a lot of movies. One movie in particular that really changed my expression and became a turning point for me was ‘Silent Light’ by Mexican director Carlos Reygadas. I really loved the aesthetics of this film; so much it actually changed my photography.
And your practice now - how would you describe it?
LBE: I like to photograph places with issues that people don’t know much about. And if they think they know a lot about it, I like to dig deeper. The approach I have now is becoming more personal, maybe also more political.
I’m interested in how things connect; imagine if you take away religion and all other influences such as money and the country you’re born in… if you go down to the basics, I think we’re all so similar. That’s what I like to investigate.
In the project ‘You can call me a Gypsy if you want to’ you followed Roma people in Oslo back to their homes in Romania. Can you tell about the process behind the series? What was your approach and how did you go about access?
LBE: The project started out when I began noticing Roma beggars on the street, passing them on my way to work. Since Romania became part of the EU in 2007, the streetscape in Oslo drastically changed. Rumors went around that they, Roma people, were working for the mafia and so forth… and I just got very curious about who they were and what their life was like back home.
It was important for me not only to show their suffering - but to embrace every aspect of their lives, so that people could see similarities and recognize themselves in them. I further aimed to make the point that not everything about their lives are Roma issues – it’s about poverty. Poor people do exactly the same everywhere, and then you have traditions that are special for Roma. But often there’s an assumption that it’s in their culture rather than about poverty-questions. I’d also steal and roam containers, and I think anybody would, being in a similar situation. That was my approach. Knowing this, and that I was not looking down on them, gave them the trust to show me how they were living.
Are there any photographers that have influenced your work?
LBE: Yes, many, although I don’t think that they have inspired me in my visual expression.
I always admired the way Sophie Calle was thinking. Others are Mike Brodie, Wolfgang Tillmanns and Cindy Shermann.
Any preferences in terms of cameras and format?
LBE: I mostly work with 6x6 format on a Hasselblad.
Why do you choose to use analogue photography?
LBE: I discovered that analogue fits my personality better. I’m a slow photographer, and I like the quiet moments. To me it’s simply a very different expression than digital.
What are your thoughts around photography in the era of digital and social networking?
LBE: I have ambivalent feelings concerning that. It’s maybe obvious that since I work with older photographical techniques I prefer slow over fast.
I see that for many photographers social networks like Instagram makes it possible to spread information with more ease. However I also see that slow and quiet is disappearing and that society is becoming increasingly fast and rough. Kids, by example, have a tendency to become over-stimulated by social media, and are having trouble concentrating on one thing at a time. So I’m a bit old school regarding this.
Three books that you recommend?
LBE: ‘Ray’s a Laugh’ by Richard Billingham, can it get any better?
‘On Photography’ by Susan Sontag is a book I think everybody should read. It’s questioning a lot of problematic themes around photography and helps to build critical reflection towards your work.
‘A Period of Juvenile Prosperity’ by Mike Brodie. ‘Walden’ by Henri David Thoreau is a novel that has had a great influence on me.
Any show you’ve seen recently that you found inspiring? LBE: ‘Erde, Wind & Feuer’ by Damian Heinisch on display at NoPlace in Oslo.
LBE: After my mother died two years ago, I felt as if I didn’t have any family left. I didn’t grow up with my father thus I never knew his side of the family in Algeria. This project is a kind of research into my own background. I’m mixing archival material, family stories and my own photography. It’s a huge project - probably one that I could work on the rest of my life.
Any plans for the near future?
LBE: Hopefully I’ll be making the Algeria project into a photo book. That’s my biggest goal right now - to dig deeper into that project.
Yulia Krivich is a laureate of the ShowOFF (2015) section of the Polish Photomonth festival that takes place annually in Cracow. Her project was presented in a form of a book, designed and curated by Ania Nałęcka from Tapir Book Design.
I’ve been to Ukraine several times during the year and I’ve noticed a certain coincidence: each time I go home, a significant event is about to take place. I’ve felt that this is somehow connected to the anxiety within me. […] This is a complex presentiment of a conflicted land lost in contrasts. This is an intuitive attempt to record the subconscious and my own anxiety. - Yulia Krivich about ‘Presentiment’
In ‘Presentiment’ Yulia Krivich shows us how to tell a deep, difficult story using intuitive, subtle manners. Her photographs look as if they were taken spontaneously and as a set they create a very unsettling visual layer. Everyday photographs and snapshots mix with images that seem to be staged. Yet the longer we look, the less certainty we have which of them were really staged and which were not. Perhaps each and every one of them? Or perhaps absolutely none. People appear in the pictures, but we hardly see any faces. Krivich confuses us with a combination of seemingly pleasant images and a dose of disturbing ones. Photographs of a rainbow, a swan or a cloud in the sunset light are suddenly squashed with images of scars, people in masks and with tattoos or others in military uniforms. Something is about to happen or has just happened – this sensation, the title presentiment, haunts the viewer from the very beginning.
One will not find too many words in this book. There is only a short description located in a place that could be called the end of the book. However, apart from the informative aspect, it draws attention to one particular issue – this text comes in four languages: Polish, English, Ukrainian and Russian. The same applies to the title placed at the spine of the book. Even though this choice of languages seems natural, it also plays a role of a gentle reminder of the events that created the background for Krivich’s story. Although Krivich declares that this project is about «young people and the uncertain realities of their beings», while «not about their geographical locations», particular associations remain in the back of our minds.
Just like the project, the book is constructed in a subtle manner. Despite the hardcover, it seems to be fragile, vulnerable like the young people in the photographs. Its design (by Ania Nałęcka) is very unique – we see pictures printed on a magazine-like paper, which are folded in such a way that to some extent they function separately from the cover. Handling the book not only requires a bit of care, but also arouses curiosity, as we are forced to unfold it in order to experience it.
‘Presentiment’ by Yulia Krivich is one of those books that are characterized by a perfect match of their design with the story told in the photographs. It may not be large in size and eye-catching, but it hides a thought-out story served in a marvelous way.
______ * Quotes taken from Yulia Krivich’s website
Anais Lopez (AL): Let’s start with a beautiful picture. I am fortunate to have this postcard you sent me years ago on my bookshelf. Sometimes I fall on it, I like the intimate feeling and its silence. Tell us about this photo?
On this picture you see Ella (13), she is the daughter of our friend and guide Koky, the main character of the book. I took the picture at six in the morning, Ella is standing there in her pj’s looking at the outside world. She didn’t notice me at all. If she had, she wouldn’t have let me take the picture without doing her hair and dress properly.
AL: ‘Only in Burundi’ it is a wonderful journey of discovery of Burundi. As you read and browse the stories and images that make up this beautiful book you slowly approach the country. The figure of Koky is very empathic, almost fictional, a sort of master key that guided you on this journey. How Koky has influenced your work? And what could it be this without him?
Without Koky, there wouldn’t have been a book. Like you said he is the key to the whole story. Koky’s explanation on how the society in Burundi works, what you need to survive there (without the right connections you are nowhere) and how you find a place in society was crucial for this project. Koky influenced me in that I wasn’t looking for the perfect picture anymore, I was much more interested in taking the reader on a journey using symbols and photography as a tool and not as an aesthetic end result.
AL: Talking again about 'Only in Burundi’ I find interesting the graphic layout, but also the balance that you reached between words and images. Reading is smooth, phtographs are necessary pause and help to structure a visual imagery. One has the impression of browsing a travel diary. This makes it all exciting and less cerebral. What brought you to this narrative approach?
Both trips Eva Smallegange (writer) and I made felt like an unbelievable journey. Once home when we sat down with Linda Braber we decided it should be a travel book. We wanted to show a new Burundi, not only to my fellow colleagues but to the whole world. We wanted to interest people in how this little country worked. So we came up with the idea to use a different narrative approach and make it a travel diary. We realize pretty soon that it worked. Most of our readers are global citizens who work or worked in Africa. We got these amazing letters that they finally understood how the system works, how important it is to have the right connections and know-how to use them to get things done there and find your own place.
Still images of the book 'Only in Burundi’
AL: Let’s talk about your photography. How did all started? What are the memories of your first shots?
Since I can remember I wanted to be a photographer and an adventurer. Before going to the Art Academy I wanted to be a war photographer and change the world with images. At the age of 18 I travelled by myself to Central America and started to photograph injustice. Those were my first real pictures. I was quite naive and it almost cost me my life. When I came home I realized I didn’t want to be in the frontlines. Two years later I went to the Art Academy and learned I could use photography in a different way, without having to risk my life.
AL: Did you had any formal education in photography? Any book, teacher, film that helped to shape your perspective?
Yes I did my bachelor at the Royal Art Academy in The Hague and graduated in 2006. From 2008 until 2010 I did a two year master at the Sint Joost Academy in Breda.
There are two photographers that influenced me a lot. The first one was Koen Wessing, an amazing Dutch documentary photographer who travelled the globe and changed history with his pictures. When I came back from Guatemala I asked him if I could tag along with him and learn about his practice. He convinced me to go to the art academy, he told me being a photographer is a really lonely job, the friends you make at the art academy are going to be your family later. I was quite reluctant to go at first. We made a deal that if I would get kicked out of the academy I could go with him to China. I applied at the Royal Art Academy and Koen was right, in a few months the place became my home and the students and teachers my second family. I stayed for the whole 4 years.
When I was studying I came in contact with the work of Raymond Depardon, a French photographer and filmmaker. I was immediately drawn to his work and the way he does it. After working for years as a photojournalist he started to do his own long documentary projects. His later work is a great source of inspiration, not only the work itself but the way he works as well. Like me he isn’t led by the issues of the day but makes documentaries about long lasting societal issues like the changes in the countryside and the fast growth of cities. The way he uses his own voice in his narrative was an eye opener for me on how to engage people and tell a story.
'In the beginning no bird sang’ is another editorial project from you. A pretty sensorial experience. Tell us about it.
‘In the beginning no bird sang’ is a project about IJburg, a new suburb of Amsterdam built ten years ago. It’s the end of the world according to the inhabitants of Amsterdam, because nothing happens there. I was triggered by this place and wanted to know how it is for the inhabitants to live in a city without history. On my search I met Jean, a blind man of 66. He was the first person to approach me on the street. After a short conversation he invited me to go on a walk with him. He lives in block 3b and walks the island every day with his seeing-eye dog. During our walks I discovered that Jean has a special gift; he recognizes almost all the birds on IJburg and can find his way around based on their specific sounds. Jean taught me to stop using my eyes and listen to his city. He showed me his IJburg: an IJburg full of animals, nature and other special occurrences. I photographed the island through his ‘eyes’: the places he visits and the birds he ‘sees’.The project consists of a publication, a photo and video installation in the form of a show box and a sound installation. For exhibition purposes I translated the book into a show box that contains various images from the book and two videos. You can also listen to the calls of the birds through headphones. The sound installation was made by the Dutch audiographer Hannes Wallrafen. Based on several trips Hannes Wallrafen made around the island with Jean, he has created a special soundscape of Jean’s IJburg, that’s presented in a darkened room.
Now you have recently launched a crowd funding campaign ‘Country without orphans’ to support a new project in Rwanda. This initiative aims to support the education of kids and young people after the government decision of closing down all orphanages. Behind your work I read a positive confidence in rediscovering a social responsibility of art. Can you briefly describe this project?
This project has two sides. Our main question was: What happens if a country suddenly closes all its orphanages? Where are the most vulnerable children going to end up? A few weeks before L'Esperance Children’s Village in Rwanda shut its doors, we (filmmaker Anisleidy Martínez, writer Paulien Bakker and me) decided to go to Rwanda and visit this last orphanage. We wanted to investigate. We gave a photography course to the 32 remaining children. The orphanage is located on the edge of Lake Kivu, bordering Congo. There is no electricity, no tap water, and there are no mirrors. With camera in hand, the children learned to look at themselves and their world. They photographed their brothers and sisters before they were sent to live miles away from each other. Once we got back to the Netherlands Holland, we couldn’t just leave them to their fate. We had a collection of amazing images so we came up with this crazy idea: let’s make a beautiful photo notebook with their pictures, and sell them so we can help them to school. Our goal is to raise as much money as we can to send as many orphans as possible to school. That is the first part of our project.
Besides helping them we are also making an artistic project. In June 2015 we went back to follow the lives of five children after they left the orphanage. The children continued photographing and filming their own lives. Hirwa (13) and Jean-Cloude (11), the main characters of the story we are making, now live in a tiny house in Kigali with their mother, 26-year-old Fareeda, who is a woman of the night. The promised financial aid didn’t get past the priest, who is a merchant who one day decided to start his own church. This second part of the project is where we want to tell the bigger story about the difficulties with finding a place in a society where you were not welcome from the start. It’s about acceptation and finding a place where you belong.
Still images of the book ‘In my dream I want to become a tourist’ from the video of the crowd funding campaign ‘Help us send Rwandan orphans to school’. The book is selling to support the goal of educating at least 5 kids through secondary school. Read more from HERE.
In your vision what is the role of photography, and how do you see its future in a time dominated by simulations? Should we foster a higher human empathy in our actions and practices? As you state in your website «The main question I ask myself in my work is whether people make the city or the city makes the people»…
My aim is to get my photo stories to the widest public possible. By moving stories forward we can make people care on so many different levels. It all starts with you telling your story to different audiences.
I do think we are living in a time where people need (photo) stories to make them dream, make them care and get them acting. Does it always has to go hand in hand with a campaign for a good cause? No, I think the most important thing is that we continue to make our stories no matter what and that use all the tools we have to spread it and inspire people: to make them think and get them engaged.
And sometimes a story comes along, like in the case of these orphans, where it just isn’t enough to tell the world about it and you feel the need to do something right now. That is when you become an activist.
Why photography? What did actually push you to choose the photographic practice as your medium of artistic expression?
Annabel Werbrouck (AW): After finishing my studies on Geography in the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), I came to the conclusion that it didn’t really interest me as a subject anymore. So, I decided to take a trip for three months to Vietnam. During that trip I discovered that I was interested in photography and that I wanted to show things that we don’t see if we don’t look. A need to show intimacy, humanity of different layers of society, often from outcasts had risen. I wanted to focus on peoples’ lives, habits. I wanted to meet them. So, I started a three year educational program of night classes in the School of Photography of Agnes Varda with the ambition to understand and undertake different aspects of photography.
When did it all start? Tell us a bit about the beginning of your photographic work.
AW: At the beginning a big part of my photography was concentrated on social subjects. It kind of allowed me to discover worlds which would normally be out of reach. I am interested on the outcast of society, so I explored communities such as residential camping sites, or families of orphans from Ethiopia. After a life changing event, the death of my mother, three years ago, I found myself turning towards a kind of photography more intimate and personal with new works such as “a morning” as well as ‘Journal d'une femme à Berlin… (Diary of a woman in Berlin…)’, for instance.
Henri Cartier-Bresson declared: ‘Your first 10000 photographs are your worst.’ How do you think your work has evolved during the time elapsed?
AW: My work is actually autobiographical, the series ‘Un matin… (A morning…)’ as well as ‘Journal d'une femme à Berlin… (Diary of a woman in Berlin…)’ are intimate series of self-fiction character, which concentrate around the self portrait, everyday life and its joys and sufferings. The life of a daughter in mourning for her mother’s death, adapting in a new city, the life of a couple are all subjects that I explore and present through these works.
Why do you choose film? Is the film choice made in order to express something specific? What type of format are you working with? What type of film and what kind of technique do you use in general? How do you feel about photography in the digital era?
AW: For the moment I work in both analogue and digital. I have used Polaroid for a while, especially for the series ‘Un matin… (A morning…)’ but I have also worked digitally for a while ‘Journal d'une femme à Berlin… (Diary of a woman in Berlin…)’.
Let’s talk about your latest work. How did you get the idea?
My latest work entitled ‘Le garçon… (A boy…)’ is a series constructed from ancient photos which I found at my parents’ attic. The need to work with ancient images came to me when I had to empty the house after my mother’s death. I wanted to gather family albums, to keep memories, traces, fragments of her life alive… So, my last work emerged from these needs. In ‘A boy’ I concentrate on a narration which starts from ancient photos that I found and I re-modelled to something new in order to express my feelings and my needs.
What would you like to express through this series?
AW: I try to express the poetry of the time elapsed.
How did you organise your research?
AW: The project researches the material; the traces of time which elapses from these ancient negatives from these ancient photos.
What is the main inspiration of the project presented here? Do you feel that the work on this project has finished?
AW: The series is entitled ‘Un matin… (A morning..)’ and the images were created using a Polaroid camera after the death of my mother. I had to return to my childhood house and I found it empty. However, even though the rooms were stripped of their content they hid so many memories and emotions that I wanted to capture. At the moment I wanted to preserve the traces; and I tried to do that through self-portraits and dead natures. I tried to give a universal aspect to this work; an aspect to which everyone could relate to…
What are your future ideas and on what would you be interested to concentrate?
AW: Today the themes that interest me turn around the intimate, the personal and self-fiction. They are themes which concentrate on self portraits, and my every-day life with the joys and the sufferings that exist in it.
Is there any contemporary artist or photographer, even if young and emerging, that influenced you in some way?
AW: The photographer Anne De Gelas influenced me a lot with her way to treat photography as an autobiographical instrument; intimate and personal.
A photo-book which you recommend?
AW: The book of Katrien De Blauwer‘I do not want to disappear silently into the night’ influenced me a lot in my research and practise of manipulating ancient images for creating poetic synthesis.
For the ‘Flower Fabric’ series, which Eason Tsang (曾家偉) exhibited in Blindspot Gallery earlier this year, he used a rather uncommon method to frame his work. “Why float mounting?” I asked upon seeing the physical print in his studio. To which he answered “I want the audience to look at my photograph as a surface, just like a piece of flower fabric.” Eason put thought into every aspect of his work, from framing to the photographic image per se. He is engrossed with details. The photographs’ ability to precisely replicate reality on paper fascinates him. He meticulously recreated the pattern of flower fabric with flowers and small junks in his newer photographic work, spending weeks gathering the right props and hand-painting the flower in the colour identical to that appears on the fabric. ‘I am not a photographer in the conventional sense.’ He approached photography like a scientist, deconstructing the medium and examining every aspect in detail. In the exhibition ’Imagine there’s no country, Above us only our cities’ in Para Site, he took some time off photography and went on experimenting with video and multimedia, documenting a staged performance of sweeping floors in Cha Chaag Tang (Hong Kong local restaurant) that examines city identity through interactions between him and restaurant goers.
Growing up, have you ever imagined being a photographic artist? When did you start to make conscious photographic choice and see photography as a artistic medium?
Eason Tsang (ET): Growing up I was not especially in love with the idea of being a photographer. I saw my friend toying with his camera when I was younger and thought that photography is interesting. I would take some snapshot on the street, but I never took photography seriously. I only began considering being a photographer when I was in college, studying creative media in City University of Hong Kong. I am not a traditionally trained photographer nor a photo maniac, my interest in photography as an artistic medium only began later in my life. There are good and bad. For instance, my approach to photography is very different from Japanese photographer, who considered photography a kind of self-transcending practice and treated it earnestly. I, on the other hand, enjoy deconstructing the medium. Since ‘Flower Fabric’, I have been putting more emphasis on the medium rather than photographic image as the ultimate means of expression. Among my three photo series, ‘Landmark’, ‘Rooftop’ and ‘Flower Fabric’, ‘Landmark’ leans towards traditional photography.
How is your research process? How do you usually come up with the concept of each project?
ET: I usually began with a very rough idea. I will keep experiment on that idea, until i am satisfied with the result. I got the idea for ‘landmark’, for example, one day walking on the street and looked up at a skyscraper. From that angle, the facade resembles a road. I found it really interesting, so I started going out at night, bringing my tripod and shooting various facades from the same angle. The project started off with an intention as simple as that.
You could say I am a bit of a fickle person. I think as I do. I keep questioning myself and looking for improvement. I also get bored easily, so I avoid doing the same thing over and over again. I like trying new things. Before every project, I normally spend a great period of time experimenting, trying out different approaches until I have a refined concept.
My photographic sensibility leans toward scientific investigations, much like German photographers Bernd and Hilla Becher, who looked at photography in an almost pure statistical and anthropological approach. The way I see it, image is not the end product of photography. I see camera as a tool to realise my thoughts and concepts. Maybe this have something to do with my education in science.
What is the idea behind ‘Floral Prints’? Can you tell us more about what you mean by ‘re-manifesting nature of photography’, a quote from your artist statement?
I enrolled in a theory course in the final year of my college and one of the required reading, of course, is Roland Barthes’s ‘Camera Lucida’. Out of all her theories, I was most fascinated by her comment on the mechanical properties of camera and thus the precise replication of reality, or as she puts it ‘the clock of seeing’. I began contemplating the ontological difference between paintings and photography, particularly the realistic expression of reality as opposed to illustrations and drawings which are the result of subjective rendering of reality. At the same time, i developed a liking for floral patterns, but felt uncomfortable wearing any of those. So instead, I turned my obsession to photographs. I use the real objects to rebuild the floral pattern and document the result.
ET: A camera can capture the subject through every nuance, the amount of details retained in a photograph is incomparable to any other pictorial mediums like fabrics. I want to create a visual experience that accentuate the difference, to add one more layer to looking. I got this idea of making my photos more similar to what you will see in a real garden flowerbed. When watching from afar, you can see the floral pattern. but upon closer examination, you will notice there are debris and all kinds of junks, such as cigarette butts, randomly laying around.
How long did it take you to shoot? I can imagine the preparation and work that you put into the projects?
ET: Every photo takes about 1-2 weeks to prepare. I had a flower bed made and installed in my student studio. Before every shooting, I would arrange the flowers and other props overnight. I need to be quick because those flowers do not last. Taking the pictures is just pressing the shutter. It happened really quick, but recreating the flower pattern to the exact detail is quite a headache. Sometimes, the colours on the fabric do not exist in natural flowers, to replicate them in real life, I have to paint every single flowers by hand or use plastic flowers.
Tell me more about your work in the exhibition in Parasite.
ET: I went to sweep floor in Cha Chaan Teng (Hong Kong styled restaurant). I tied a camera to the mop and filmed the whole act. The POV video is exhibited in the exhibition ’Imagine there’s no country, Above us only our cities’in Para Site.
Building on the theme of identity and nationality, I reveal the hidden relationships between citizens and urban planning through performance. Cha Chaan Teng is a cheap restaurant for local people, yet its food and interior design are heavily influenced by western culture, many of them, such as British milk tea, are remade with a Hong Kong twist to meet local taste. From my performance, I hope the audience can get a glimpse of the interactions within the restaurants: of me and the diners, of the mop and the diners and among diners themselves.
What is your experience with video? How is it different from video?
ET: Videos and photographs have very distinctive narrative features. Videos are time sensitive. Photographs work as narrative surfaces, freezing a moment for further examination (In fact, we can probably see more from a photograph than we can ever do in real life, looking at the same object given that we can eternally look at a photograph, a moment in time.) Yes, I love the subtlety and detail in a photograph. It allows me to keep looking, keep discovering more and indulge in the strange pleasant process of viewing an image. For the same reason, I put more focus on details in my photographic practice, constantly looking for nuances and patterns.
Favourite exhibition(s)/ photo book(s)/ photography project(s)/ photographer? ET: Andures Gursky, Thomas Ruff, Ryan McGinley.
The interview was originally conducted in Chinese. This article is edited for clarity.
One of the reasons that brought me closer to photography is the widespread use of this medium to document and describe land and territories. The ability to synthesize and express the complexity of territories is also the basis of the large public recognition of a photographic action in favor of the land management. Photography therefore no longer mainly didactic or illustrative, but a practical function of observation of the landscape that both complements other traditional instruments and disciplines in the study of territorial transformations, and potentially affect the design thinking. The experience gained in this respect are numerous, sometimes questionable, however, they testify the increasing role of a commissioning, or at least of a sensibility.
Furthermore it must be said that photography as other visual languages offers new views and possibilities of interpretation and reading of the landscape and its history. In this perspective, I find it interesting to introduce the ongoing project ‘CALAMITA/A’ edited by Gianpaolo Arena and Marina Caneve. A dialogue and a survey on the area of Vajont in Italy, a valley known mostly for the environmental disaster that struck in 1963 and for the political negligence that caused this event. I asked them to describe the reasons and outcomes of this experience, and to give voice to some of the authors involved. A research that I would define as “bottom up” because it’s a independent cultural format. It is in fact a good practice of participation and an example that I hope will flourish in other territories.
Let’s start from the interdisciplinary nature of the project CALAMITA/A’. Why this curatorial choice and what difficulties have you encountered developing it?
Gianpaolo Arena e Marina Caneve (GA MC): Both architects and photographers, we are convinced of the importance of building an articulate and complex vision of our territory. Our main intention was, since the beginning of the project, to generate reactions between projects involving different disciplines, languages and mediums with the will to make them dialogue openly. A collective project where individuality and identity participate actively in the analysis and interpretation of the territory. Since the beginning we have worked to generate a debate on the subject, by relating on the same platform several disciplines and languages. For us Vajont was a great challenge. The story of a territory marked by a tragic history and for this highly attractive. Almost a dangerous and cathartic attraction for a landscape of impenetrable mystery. A sensation so well described and narrated by Peter Weir in ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock’ (1975).
What interested us considerably was how the perception of the tragedy and the mutation of the territory has changed. We asked the participating authors to interpret the territory and space and to create a new reading of the catastrophic event. Memory preservation is important, but it must be placed in relation with what is contemporary and what has been built over the last 50 years. Two years after the launch of CALAMITA/A’ we are still convinced of the contribution that a multidisciplinary and open approach can give to a project about a territory. As curators, we wanted to design an online platform where contents could be displayed in the best possible manner. On the website, since the beginning, we have chosen to show on-going projects, asking the authors to work in relatively long periods of time evolving their projects.
This decision comes from the idea of sharing their research and increasing their work by studying the other projects. The main interest is in fact to build an evolving project, within which the authors who put it together emerge, but most of all to create a collective and shared vision. The difficulties we have encountered coordinating all these authors have been mainly logistic and related to the variety of mediums used. Before starting we established a dossier with different information about the tragedy and the territory to be given to the authors. We didn’t receive the logistic and economic support that we hoped. Believing in what what we were able to build during these years, we are convinced that the situation will evolve in this direction. CALAMITA/A’ is a large organic laboratory about territory, which uses the web to convey information, to generate debates and interaction, to state assumptions and possible itineraries.
This year the project received an important recognition with the selection and participation at the Swiss festival Alt. + 1000. Tell us about this experience? What kind of feedback have you received from experts and from the public opinion?
(GA MC): Alt. + 1000 – now in its fourth edition – is a festival tied to the mountain, especially mountain photography. After hosting authors such as Olivo Barbieri, Simon Norfolk, Simon Roberts, Awoiska van der Molen, Olaf Otto Becker, Matthieu Gafsou… many of which have been published on our platform, the festival management identified “Territory” as its theme. A jury of curators and photography and contemporary art experts such as Béatrice Andrieux, Raphaël Biollay, Matthieu Charon, Pierre Geneston, Catherine Gfeller, Nathalie Herschdorfer, have selected us among 187 candidates. The exhibition project we proposed was developed during the experience of the exhibition held last September as part of Laboratorio Italia at the SI Fest in Savignano sul Rubicone, by Massimo Sordi and Stefania Rossl; the installation was conceived as a proposal for an ongoing, where the territory has a great importance and is put in relation with the projects of the authors. This is the reason why we used a large wallpaper that showed an aerial view of the “Vajont territories”.
We wanted to relate the aerial view with a silk-screen print from Latitude Platform, an urbanism and research studio on the theme of water, and in contrast, we used a white wall as the creation site of our vision of the territory. A manner which puts in a close relation a scientific and objective view with an emotional and subjective approach. Our experience with the Festival was very positive. It represented an important evolution of the exhibition project and the opportunity to create a Newspaper, to be distributed to the visitors of the festival, with interviews conducted during the past year. During the opening of the Festival we had the opportunity to discuss the project with the director of the Festival Béatrice Andrieux, with whom we built the exhibition idea from January to June; with Nathalie Herschdorfer, curator of the festival and director of the Musée de Beaux Arts de Le Locle, with Marco Costantini, chief director of the Festival Alt. + 1000 and current director of MUDAC, with professors from the ECAL of Losanna and many academics, journalists and professionals in the field of territorial transformations. We were very impressed by the interest the public showed towards the tragic story of Vajont and towards the project itself.
The project has collected so far an important adhesion. What will be the future developments of the project also in relation to the communication and distribution of the research?
The network has conquered an international dissemination and visibility. Daily we receive submissions coming from photographers around the world. The project depending on the context, the demands and goals can be declined as an exhibition, as editorial and can develop itself through educational activities and research. The Collateral section will have new developments and updates; currently it is hosting the works of international authors such as Zhang Kechun, Yurian Quintanas Nobel, Jürgen Nefzger, Benoit Aquin, Mitch Epstein, Edward Burtynsky, Gareth Phillips, Ian van Coller, Marion Belanger, Pétur Thomsen, Pascal Amoyel, Yannik Willing, François Deladerrière, Bärbel Praun, Richard Petit, Céline Clanet. The section dedicated to thematic interviews, will be central to the project and strongly declined towards current geopolitics, with some insights on topics such as disasters and calamities, territorial and urban transformations, dynamic identities, climatic changes, the global market, architecture, the tourism industry, ecologic issues, migration and social marginality and minorities. In addition to those already published with Derrick De Kerckhove, Olaf Otto Becker, Matthieu Gafsou, Simon Norfolk, Rob Stephenson, Drew Nikonowicz, William Basinski, Aglaia Konrad, new contributions will be added soon edited by Camilla Boemio, Niccolò Fano and Roberta Agnese. Given the social, documentary and participating nature of a project which involves, even emotionally, many people, it’s possible to develop a crowfunding platform which will allow us to create a series of activities in different directions: publications, contests, presentations. The ‘inadequate reaction’ of corporations and institutions to support this project economically offers this type of direction. The participation and interest that CALAMITA/A’ has raised in the last two years gives us hope.
What are you thinking for the future, we know there is the idea of an editorial project. What is it about?
The publication aims to be a point of arrival where we unveil what has been created since 2013 to today. The authors involved have generously spent a lot of energy creating their projects on the Vajont territory. At the same it will be a new beginning to trigger synergies, collaborations, theories for itineraries. The idea is to combine site specific photographic projects with an apparatus of critical texts and essays on the subject of catastrophes, as well as an excerpt of the interviews developed on the same theme. A sort of interdisciplinary and organic mapping of the territory where photography, still remaining the preferential tool of investigation, overlaps and relates with other disciplines and instruments.
a. Why a project on Vajont? What were the initial motivations and how did the research develop?
b. Vajont as a historical event weighs on current reality and inevitably on its transcription, description and representation. How much has this relationship affected the project?
c. Photography can act as a tool of investigation and analysis complementing traditional practices of urban and territorial planning. What is the personal contribution of your project to the interpretation of this territory?
d. Landscape doesn’t exist, but the idea of landscape that each of us have does. This creates a space for dialogue. The photographer can show through his work an interpretation of the landscape highlighting aspects of social and civil nature. Which elements and features of the landscape did you want to trace with your point of view?
1. SERGIO CAMPIONE
a. I accepted the invite of Marina Caneve and Gianpaolo Arena with much enthusiasm and many uncertainties, in front of an unknown and complex territory such as Vajont. With 50 years of investments, speculations, trials and social disasters, why not do a research on the Vajont! Initially I was following other routes, let’s say, mostly forensic. Starting from some documents I wanted to reconstruct photographs, as if to mark the probatory aspect. The intention was to make multiple orders (geological, legal, military, economic, urban and anthropologic) interact and to highlight the conflicts and their showcase. Then during my stay in Longarone I became more interested in the contemporary aspect, leaving in the background the historical part and looking for an urban landscape highly fragmented and ambiguous as the Vajont territories.
b. The historical events of Vajont are very complex, made of mysteries intertwined with politics and the nationalization of electricity, which occurred “coincidently” with the catastrophe. To understand how Italy was during the 50s and 60s and what price it had to pay for progress, as always you have to look to art and intellectuals. So the harsh Italian society of the 50s doesn’t appear in the least out of place, as it was narrated by Italo Calvino with the “industry speculation” of ’57, with the social climbing of the middle class, of which Pierpaolo Pasolini wrote and said much about and then, during the year of Vajont Italian cinema gives birth to one of its most important masterpieces on civil commitment with “Le mani sulla città” by Francesco Rosi. The city is the Naples of Achille Lauro, and the hands are those of a real estate speculator who managed to change the city’s planning.
c. If we decide that photography is a political fact then it is certainly one of the best tools to interpret contemporary society with its desires of appropriation. On my personal behalf, I have no certainty. I only believe that placing doubts is the only narrative form that i wish to achieve.
d. If a landscape to exist needs someone to see it, it is certainly true that we recognize a landscape only if it concerns us and is generated by collective memory. We must then understand how memory itself interprets or enhances the physical space of places. In Vajont’s case collective memory has been almost completely erased and as if the tragedy of ’63 has obscured everything, leaving only the memory of itself, fragmented and ambiguous. The only place where it is strongly alive with traces of the landslide still very evident, is the “old forest” as the inhabitants of Erto-Casso call it. Here we can read time, the geological time and the resilience of nature. Adding and accumulating traumas without removing them, after all, is a completely “natural” talent.
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2. MICHELA PALERMO a. I have being interested in photography with events that have had a collective impact or significance, looking to them through my personal perspective. I engage my vision with elements such landscapes or observed portraits looking for traces –better say echoes- of such facts. One of my former project ‘My broken world’ was about the earthquake in Irpinia: after 30 years from the aftermath I went back and I looked for signs of this change. Widely I consider the earthquake of 1980 in Irpinia as a switch from a rural to a sort of postindustrial world, a phenomenon that’s been affecting also the area of Vajont. So the opportunity to research for CALAMITA/A’ project, has seemed both to the curators than me as an interesting challenge to move forward in my work.
b. I’m just about starting my project, but I believe the historical aspect will be an important pivotal in my approach. My background is in Political Studies and the tragedy of the dam was the fact which cracked the social contract in the local community and had a strong reverb in the national frame. I’m particularly interested for this kind of rip and to use the historical background as a scaffold for constructing my narrative.
c. The disaster of Vajont crushed in few moments a story of millennium considering the landscape, but also the economical and social structures in the area. I consider photography in its fragmented essence an important tool to reflect about the idea of territory, due to its inner capacity of travelling through space and time.
d. I think I have being particularly influenced by the tales I heard about the moments of the tragedy, when in few minutes the landscape and everything connected to it has changed forever. I chose the word “submerged”, and through it I took a first step in order to envision my story of Vajont: it was a first kick, I’m looking forward to seeing where it will lead me.
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3. GABRIELE ROSSI
a. For a long time I have been interested in human action on territory and have tried to translate the consequences through a system of images which tend to help me revisit the past and to generate a hypothesis on the present. When I arrived at Longarone I was stricken by a still landscape, frozen in tragedy. Through three referential sections identified as the valley, the dam and all that remains behind I built an imaginary line, a sort of rewind visible on a magnetic tape.
b. Representing a landscape through photographic means often generates foregone conclusions and stereotypes caused by misinterpretations. In my opinion a landscape and its historical evaluation can be imagined as a wall or better yet as an iconostasis to be completed without the need to be worshiped.
c. Does narrating a territory more than 50 years after a disaster that has devastated it make sense? I believe all my work can be attributed to a single descriptive procedure which tends to clearly show the state of things. Everything is changed and nothing is as before. This large uncertainty that haunts me creates an obsession, a state of fundamental crisis to tell what Vajont is for me today.
d. When you narrate a landscape though its features, everything is an influence, from the light there is in that moment to what we discovered from a prior documentation. Through probing actions, borrowed from geological surveying techniques I wanted to mark isolated points scarcely attributed among them except through the perpetual sign of nature on landscape. The altitudes collapse and nature’s more concrete layers follow them.
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4. CYRILLE WEINER & GIAIME MELONI
a.It is not purely a project on the Vajont. Of course the images produced provide a tangible proof of our presence in the territory, in a certain way they documented it. However the identity characteristics of this place, anchored in recent history, mean that the project can assume a more universal dimension of visual search. We started a direct exploration by seeking strong characteristics that can be declined as a paradigm. This approach allowed us to take distance compared to the documentation - and strictly documentary photography - in order to provide a more universal reflection on our relationship with the world. In fact the Vajont acts as a paradigm: a territory stigmatized by a human and natural disaster. The starting point of this work was to reflect on the broader definition of disasters. Paul Virilio’s quote : “A civilization that implements immediacy, the ubiquity and immediacy, staged the accident, the catastrophe” is the key to reading the project ‘Banale e Brutale’. This phrase has allowed us to activate a reflection necessary for the development work. The observation of the French philosopher lets understand the human necessity of staging the accident and the disaster. From this observation about the media coverage of the disaster we have built a sensible definition by creating a work able to mix text and images. It became clear, developing the project, to produce a newspaper that can reconstruct, in a fictional way, the staging of the disaster.
The events we have chosen to create the newspaper ‘Banale e Brutale’ are minor facts/minor disasters that populate the pages. The gap created by hiding the main event, on a visual level reading, allowed us to focus attention on the confrontation of nature with culture, about how man produces obvious marks on the territory such as disasters.
b. For us was important to understand and to hesitate on the cycle of destruction and reconstruction of the country, because it is constantly undergoing revolutionary and evolutionary transformations. The identification of two distinct phases allowed us to stop time on an uncertain temporality a temporary fragment trapped between it is not and it is not yet. Our direct experience of the territory has caused a visual interest and curiosity for strong signs that marked the territory. First the massive strength of the dam, stigma and reason of the disaster, express its maximum power from its brute/brutal/brutalist identity. The monolithic presence of the dam gave a possible key to reading this space we strongly connoted by the presence of concrete, imposed on the Vajont, alternating construction and destruction phases. This material is banal, for the simplicity of its realization, and brutal, for its texture and color, comes to us as a filter in the landscape’s reading. The name of ‘Banale e Brutale’ project recovers this double quality of concrete as a metaphor of any material of construction but also an element capable of harmonizing violence and the fragility of this place.
c. The visual experience of the places through the images, which we realized on the Vajont, certifies the active role of photography as a discipline of landscape’s studies. Concretely we have developed a photographic pratice as a tool for visual auscultation of material and immaterial Vajont’s transformations. The intellectual solicitation of immersive action on the territory allows us to assert that photography can be considered a discipline of study and practice of landscape, between geography and architecture. However in contrast to other disciplines, photography does not give answers but raises new questions. It can be defined as a continuous verification process for the landscape’s evolution. The images of ‘Banale e Brutale’ project makes possible to qualify spaces. Qualifier is to give them a quality that can be very different stereotypes, offer a new reading, to look at things that are often neglected. Rather than giving to see things as they are the subjacent message of our work ‘Banale e Brutale’ wants to go beyond the superficial relationship of photography to reality. The photos aims to prove that there is an implicit message exceeding the limits of the image itself. We accept that the message of the images can be corrupted / destroyed at any time by the viewer / reader of ‘Banale e Brutale’. Indirect experience through our images can reproduce new knowledge of the Vajont.
d. When operating on a specific territory, such as the Vajont, our gaze was lingered on the peculiars aspects of the place : the banal and brutal material which gave the key to reading for visual approach to interpretation of the landscape. Fragmentation operated by the images results in multiple definition, because indeed the landscape as a unit exists only in our minds. Photographic practice has identified the main aspects of the landscape: the plurality of their identities. We can not speak of a single landscape we have rebuilt in ‘Banale e Brutale’ project because it is already a plural work led by two different people. The richness of the project finds its strength in the will to rebuild multiple landscapes from a collective experience on the territory. In conclusion, this sensitive and intellectual concern visual action can be entered as a test re - Production of the landscape (S) through the construction of various fragments.
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5. LATITUDE PLATFORM
a.The Vajont represents maybe one of the most tragic and paradigmatic man-driven disaster that has affected the Italian territory in the last century. Latitude’s recent researches on how urbanisation can cope with environmental risks and the need to find a fertile collaboration with engineers, plus the anniversary of the Vajont have been the starting point.
b. It has been fundamental to “give voice” and “shape the body” of the artworks that Latitude has produced so far. The representation of the mechanics of the tragedy - landslide and wave - in an abstract (model) or contextual (serigraphy) way are meant to be two invitations to look at the present through measurable images of the past.
c. In the serigraphy Latitude has overlapped different spaces - thanks to transparencies and layers - and times - representing various moments at once through images and text - aiming at producing a multilayered measurable image. Similarly, the model shows the pure shapes and quantities of material (water, soil) involved in the disaster which are never represented as such.
d. Our work starts from the technical and measurable representations of the landscape (cartography, engineering drawings, data) highlighting the link and the distance between the dry, objective images of the territory and the “emotional geography” derived from the disaster. Thus, the attention is posed on the visible and invisible elements of the landscape that echo of the tragedy.
Tell us about your approach to photography. How did it all start? What are your memories of your first shots?
Stig De Block (SDB): During my childhood I developed a great interest in the true American scenery I saw in Hollywood movies, which I continued being fascinated by until this day. It’s the exoticism captured in those settings that got me searching for similar suburban structures in my nearby neighborhood.
Because, I am sure someone from Asia or Australia would have the same feeling about the place where I live as I got from American suburbs. That’s where the idea for Suburban Dreams came to life, although it took me years to connect that exotic feeling with the true beauty of my hometown. It took me 7 years to really develop that state of mind ‒ from the first shot I took with my father’s Nikon F301 till now.
How did your research evolve with respect to those early days?
SDB: I still watch movies from the 1980-’99 era because they inspire me to develop my imagery. And I am still caught by a great exoticism when I look at work of great photographers like Stephen Shore or Peter Brown etc… They taught me everything I know. They taught me to appreciate the ordinary and to try to catch its beauty. It made me not take things for granted.
What do you think about photography in the era of digital and social networking?
SDB: THe post-internet age and digital imaging are inseparable but in my opinion it made us impatient and uninterested because we scroll without looking. We want to show too much too soon. The digital age pushes a lot of us to publish work without much consideration, because we fear being missed out. I try to ignore it but then again internet blogging is becoming an established form of spreading your work and connecting. In January I installed instagram to show my process and connect with other creatives. It’s also a good platform to discover new places from a personal point of view. But it is what it is, a digital platform.
About your work now. How would you describe your personal research in general?
SDB: I am attracted to, at first sight, uninteresting common places. Before starting a project I have to get a connection with a place that is strong enough to build a story on. Mostly it happens by driving through familiar boroughs and trying to look for that thing that I didn’t see before, or a situation happening that wasn’t there the last time I drove by. A place during daytime can look very different at night, or a place can be far more interesting in capturing during summer because of the light.
When I first moved to the city last year I started the series ‘2018′ named after the postal code I live in and the year I will finish it. With those parameters in mind it could go anywhere. For example, I’ve been going on walks after work and during the night, feeling like an outsider capturing everything I find interesting. After a couple of months I realized a lot of streets looked similar so I began to photograph them from the same angle in the same lighting conditions. That’s what I am doing for now but I still have three years to go. There are other paths to walk and faces to shoot so I don’t make any conclusions yet with this body of work.
SDB: For ‘Solid Grey’ I made multiple journeys between 2013 & 2015 to Lanzarote, the easternmost island of the Canary Islands. During those journeys I drove back and forth along the ever-changing landscape to document the impact of the isle’s volcanic eruptions from 1730-36 and 1824. This disastrous event covered a great part of the island with lava, resulting in what is now called Timanfaya park. This aggressive but beautiful natural phenomenon is one of the main elements of Lanzarote’s (tourist)-economy.
The body of work shows how the inhabitants have learned to adapt to their environment, rather than to adjust the landscape. They embedded their needs and provisions in a landscape determined by nature itself. It’s an on-going project that I will keep documenting for the foreseeable future.
Is there any contemporary artist or photographer, even if young and emerging, who influenced you in some way?
SD: I cannot give you a specific photographer that got me into photography but it was a photo of Thomas Struth I saw in Het Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam back in 2012 that influenced me to literally take a step back and observe urban structures rather than shoot whatever I come across. That photo kind of made me define my own field.
Three books of photography that you recommend? Alec Soth - From Here To There: Alec Soth’s America. Max Pinckers - Will they sing like raindrops or leave me thirsty Ives Maes - The Future Of Yesterday
Is there any show you’ve seen recently that you find inspiring?
SDB: The most interesting exhibition I did in the past 6 months was at deSingel, organized by Vai, called “StadBuitenStad” (city out of the city). It looked at themes and contemporary urban situations the way I observe them but from the perspective of a true architect, a researcher or even an environmental planner. The featured lecture given by Labo S with Bruno Notteboom and others discussed a dozen of very Belgian landscapes and how or why they changed during the last hundred years. The changes were illustrated by systematic views with an interval of 10 to 30 years.
Projects that you are working on now and plans for the future?
SDB: I just finished ‘Aftermath’, a portrait series I made during my visits to a Brazilian Jijitsu fight club. The photos show the impact on a human body after an intense muscle fight. I worked on it for a year now and it feels finished. The complete body of work will be done in October.
But I never work on a single project. I currently have about 5 big projects running over several years. It gives me the freedom to lay aside a project I am stuck with or don’t have a clear vision on anymore. That’s also how I evaluate the images. I work on something really intense for a period of time and let it rest as I continue working on another project. Then later I see interesting things in photos I didn’t select before, and vice versa.
At the moment I am re-evaluating ‘Turistas’, deciding on how long I am going to work on it. Do I make it an on-going project for another 5 years or do I wrap it up? I am leaving to New York soon where I am going to try to photograph busy streets when they’re empty, without tourists this time.
SDB: When a set of photos tells the story I want to tell and I see no potential in taking more photos, then I stop. I never work with a pre-determined volume of images in mind but I make small prints during the process in order to visually see what fits and what doesn’t. For example I just printed a sample book of ‘Solid Grey’ to see how it works in print and after re-evaluating the series I am planning a new trip to shoot more up-close shots to get deeper into the story.
You also work as an commercial photographer, how do you experience this world?
SDB: Commercial assignments require efficiency. Budgets are low and time is money so in terms of workflow it’s the complete opposite of my personal work. When it comes to visual language and subject I try to work in the same field as much as possible.
How do you think that photography will be evolving in the future and where do you place yourself in this future?
SDB: The evolution to the digital era of photography brought the craft closer to mainstream. It got more accessible through mobile phones and in the past 5 years it even became a way of digital (over)communication. On the other hand am I not able to scan high-res negatives for large prints at home. I hope analog and digital will grow more towards each other in the future and make the use of both more accessible. I love the attention analog photography gets on the internet and in certain print magazines. My goal is to work analog for clients that see the difference in aesthetics and quality.
Tell us about your approach to photography. How it all started? What are your memories of your first shots?
Sébastien Tixier (ST): The very first memories I have date back from my early childhood. My father had one of those old Zenit cameras. Plain black, heavy, massive design, loud shutter noise. I found it fascinating, and I have grown with this fascination for the images, but I actually quite never took pictures back then. Only when I turned 24, I decided to buy my first camera and take my first pictures. I think that at that time the democratization of the digital cameras sounded to me like a great learning tool. I went to film later, only once I felt comfortable with the technic. For some reason, my first shots were mostly urban shots, textures of walls, and vegetation mixing with concrete. Nothing was really planned; it was much more pure intuition and a research of graphic patterns.
How did your research evolve with respect to those early days?
ST: I can remember that, about one year or so after experimenting with photography, I turned more and more impressed by some street photographs I could see from other photographers: I found it so hard to come up with a strong composition while shot at a much wider angle than my “close up” shoots. And that was the time when I slowly started to widen my frame bit by bit out of my comfort zone. Then finally I started working with film and it helped me slow down and focus. Beside these technical aspects, what has also evolved a lot along the way is the preparation of my subjects, trying to make pictures that speak about something, convey a meaning. In the end, on a project like ‘Allanngorpoq’ the time spent to actually take pictures is amazingly short compared to the preparations, documentations, contacts, discussions, etc. required to set up the frame of the project. And I realize that over time, the time I’ve spent on those aspects has greatly increased as my projects evolved.
What do you think about photography in the era of digital and social networking?
ST: I can see at least three aspects in it. One is the social media itself, which I think can be a powerful tool for artists to gain visibility, get in touch and share with other persons with whom it would not have been possible otherwise. Another aspect is the democratization of photography that goes with it, and I consider it a rather positive thing. It gives more people ways to express themselves and somehow force the artists to be not just “mass”-technicians but focus on the subject. And the last point is the tendency of the content on social networks to be more and more image-based (Posts with pictures get the most clicks, so over years we have seen full text statuses evolve into “catchy illustration image along with shorter text”, videos are used to have people listen to music, etc). In that last context, this can lead either to the risk of depreciation of the photographic act, or in contrary build an overestimation of its importance. Only future will tell! But I think that it’s also what I like about photography. The fact that it’s a young medium evolving quickly, and how it reveals a lot about how we live, in one way or another.
About your work now. How would you describe your personal research in general?
ST: My studio work is mainly introspective and very personal. In contrary, with the rest of my work I try to address subjects that question me, and that, I think, are testimonies of the challenges of this world as we know it. In these works I’m more interested in raising questions to the viewer, more than providing answers – which I don’t think I have. I am interested in the way people adapt to their living environment, and how this living environment changes and is shaped by various factors (economic politics, culture shifts, access to resources), how it brings societies or communities to change accordingly and adapt again. Whether it be how people once adapted to the hostile environment of the arctic and now deal with its change, or how housing projects shape the lives in peri-urban areas, or how men and women and families have settled in the over-urbanized island of Hashima, built their lives on this concrete rock before the operating company decided to close the island one day.
Do you have any preferences in terms of cameras, techniques and format?
ST: I shoot film for my personal projects. I like it for the large prints possibilities with larger formats. And though digital has improved dramatically recently when it comes to dynamic range, I still find that – for some reasons – film behaves with a nicer contrast with high dynamics scenes and “contre-jours”. But I don’t consider myself “film-obsessed”: for sure, I do enjoy the magic of shooting film and not seeing the image, but technically speaking I just find it more appropriate at the moment for what I do, and this can change. In terms of camera, my series have been made with a Mamiya RZ 67 medium format, both in the studio and in the fields. Or on the sea-ice! I’m really in love with this camera. I think it’s because it’s big and heavy enough to be constraining and it forces me to take time and think about the composition, and yet it’s also still possible to improvise a bit even hand-held. But probably one of my upcoming next projects is going to be made on a large-format 4x5.
Tell us about your series ‘Allanngorpoq’. I’m also curious to know more about your series Instants of Latency.
ST: ‘Allanngorpoq’ is about how Greenland’s society is changing in parallel of its environment. I have always been fascinated with countries and settlements of the very north, and especially Greenland as I was told stories of Inuits by my father when I was a child. As I documented on the project, I took the measure of how the current reality is very different from the tales of my childhood. The country is really at a crossing of paths. Its people begin to embrace Western lifestyles and modes of consumption. Supermarkets, cell phones are making their way into Inuit culture, and I wanted my work to capture how these rapid changes raise questions about society and identity. The documentation and preparation process took over a year, making contacts for my stays at different places in the country, from mid-latitudes to the very north, and included learning the basics of the Inuit language! This gave birth to a book that I recently released.
‘Instant of Latency’ is a bit older. I was working mostly on staged photographs at that time. In between sessions, I found myself shooting some very similar kind of urban/landscape images for a few years in a row, coming back to the same location many times with different weather and light until I was able to capture a certain mood. And that’s only later that I actually understood what they had in common and what felt important to me. So the series was then constructed later with the pictures from this period. It is about focusing on the beautiful aesthetics of “pointless” moments, but that are all around us.
Is there any contemporary artist or photographer, even if young and emerging, who influenced you in some way?
ST: Of course! And especially as a self-taught photographer I’ve learnt a lot by looking at other’s work. Nadav Kander has clearly been a strong inspiration for the mood and composition of his landscapes, and for a very different aspect Gregory Crewdson and David Lynch aesthetics. And I could also list Erwin Olaf, Alec Soth, Zhang Kechun, Eric Beaudelaire, Alexander Gronsky just to name a few.
ST: There are so many! The two that have had the biggest inspiration on me – with no surprise regarding the above – are “Yangtze the Long River” by Nadav Kander and “Beneath The Roses” by Gregory Crewdson. More recently, if I have to pick just one more, then “The Epilogue” by Laia Abril.
Is there any show you’ve seen recently that you find inspiring?
ST: It’s not photography, but anyway I’ve found the various recent collective exhibitions in Palais de Tokyo very mind blowing. I have really enjoyed the exhibitions at Le Bal also, especially ‘A Handful Of Dust’ and ‘S'il y a lieu, je pars avec vous’. And the work of Juliette-Andrea Elie at Galerie Le Petit Espace.
Projects that you are working on now and plans for the future?
ST: I am currently experimenting in different areas. With ideas to enrich/extend some of my series of staged photographs, for which I am currently sketching, but I can hardly tell when it will all come together. I am also thinking and trying pictures on a more “abstract” project mixing film and digital, but for the moment it really is just a try. And finally I’m in the documentation process and setting plans for the next project. Not related to cold country this time, but dealing with the question of water and the political challenges it conveys. Hopefully during the course of next year… But I’m also still thinking hard about giving a follower to ‘Allanngorpoq’ in maybe a couple of years!
Tell us about your approach to photography. How did it all start? What are your memories of your first shots?
Alexandra Colmenares Cossio (ACC): I remember a white Kodak camera that my parents used to have back in 1990. I can still see myself opening the camera to see what it was like inside. I also remember my mother taking pictures of me ‒ not professional ones, just photos for the family album. I remember that she let me take pictures with her camera, and that was my first experience with photography. I think all my curiosity started there.
Many years later, I took the decision of enrolling myself in a school of photography. I was not so sure about that decision, until I developed my first photograph in the lab, just by myself. I can remember the feeling when I saw the image appear from the darkness, I just gasped, and I knew that from that moment that I would continue following my curiosities in photography.
My first pictures from my early student days were more like exercises for the classes. It wasn’t until I was in my second year of school that I began to take pictures of my body, or simple everyday things, things that maybe other people take for granted, like little gestures for instance.
How did your research evolve with respect to those early days?
ACC: I think my research evolved quite a lot, because I started to feel more free since I finished school. Since then I allowed myself to experiment with image and other mediums. I think that my photography evolved based on that; those other mediums gave me more things to say and to say them in different ways. Also, moving to Belgium and dealing with new experiences, new faces, new customs and sometimes loneliness influenced my way of taking photos, thanks to all the new things that I was having in my life. It taught me a kind of different way to approach what I was seeing.
What do you think about photography in the era of digital and social networking?
ACC: It has its benefits, but in the end I think that in this digital era, everything is ephemeral and instantaneous. Nowadays everybody can take a piece of reality and take it with them as a memory, it has become too easy. Maybe because of that we are forgetting to really see and appreciate what we have in front of us.
I use both film and digital. I made a rule with the digital though, and it’s that every time I´m going to shoot with it, I have to be sure that it is just going to be just one click, just like it would be with an analogue camera. I approach it as a kind of an exercise to look carefully. I don’t know, maybe that’s a romantic or poetic idea, but it works for me.
Social networking these days is like a crazy parallel world, lots and lots of sharing pictures, filters, and programmes. We want to have a fictional analogue life in the digital era; we have replaced our family album for our Facebook one, our cameras for our phones. I think it’s a way of adapting, but I really miss those days in which you just took you family pictures with a film camera, developed them in the store and put them in the album. That being said, I can’t judge so much, because I have my own personal digital diary. Like I said, it’s just a way of adapting to the conditions of today.
I have to add that, on the other hand, this parallel world offers an open door to have more information about people who share their works on digital platforms, and thanks to that I have found some tremendous artists that I really admire.
About your work now. How would you describe your personal research in general?
ACC: I am always thinking about what a photograph is. I am always staring at things, for instance the light, or the shadows. I don’t know what exactly the impulse is that makes me take a photo in one precise moment, I just feel the necessity to do it, because I saw the complete picture in my head before. Sometimes I know what is going to happen next, so sometimes I take a picture immediately, or sometimes I just look and try to understand what is going on in that moment.
I think that I can describe it as “to look and to feel”. There might be a group of photos in which you might feel loneliness; others in which you´ll find noise, cold, or maybe nothing, but it is almost always me telling you a story, the story of who I am and what I see. In my photographs, I am the most honest “me“ that I can be.
Tell us about your latest project ‘Alignments’
ACC: The latest project that I made was called ‘Alignments’; at NVT Galerie here in Ghent. It was a duo show with artist and friend Juan Duque in which we gathered ideas about ‘the eclipse’, not in the literal meaning of the word, but in the idea(s) behind it ‒ The light and shadows, and what we cannot see. During the opening we made actions in situ. We worked with different mediums such as video, sound, performance, and photography. It was a really nice experience to work with Juan because we learn from each other. I consider this process of mutual learning very important because it is in cases like these that you get nourished by colleagues. I am so happy that I got to work with Juan; he is very talented.
Is there any contemporary artist or photographer, even if young and emerging, who influenced you in some way?
ACC: There are a quite few, yes. In different periods of my life I followed and admired different artists and their work. Of course I still admire and respect their work, but they came to me in exactly the right moment, so I can say that they influenced me mostly in those periods. Works from Nan Goldin, Gabriel Orozco, Lina Scheynius, Viviane Sassen, Luz María Bedoya, Rita Lino, Nicolás Lamas, Rinko Kawauchi. There are quite a few, like I said before, but they remain very strong to me and I always return to their works.
Three books of photography that you recommend?
‘Illuminance’ by Rinko Kawauchi ‘Lexicon’ by Viviane Sassen ‘Holy Bible’ by Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin
Is there any show you’ve seen recently that you find inspiring?
ACC: There is a show that I went to in the Foam museum in Amsterdam, which was called ‘To Photograph the Details of a Dark House in Low Light’ from Broomberg and Chanarin, in which they experiment with photography beyond an image. The images were the results, but the most important thing were the actions that took place after taking the pictures. I found this powerful and interesting and inspiring for my own work. It is the history and idea behind the last picture, the steps that you have to take to get your final result. I found a little interview of them that I would like to share where they explain their process. At the end of the interview they say, “photography is a weapon". I can’t agree more with that.
Projects that you are working on now and plans for the future?
ACC: I am currently preparing a project for a residency and solo show that I have in Amsterdam which will be at Peer. Peer is a Platform for art and culture, in the form of a quarterly paper magazine. I’m looking forward for this project, because it’s the opportunity that I was waiting for, to get to experiment and work with photography and objects during these 2 weeks of residency. It will be very random, because I will take nothing with me to the space and simply wait for the objects and photos to come to me. It’s working from zero, like starting a cycle from the beginning until the end.
Besides that I have another project that I have been developing as a hobby, which is called ‘Workplaces’. In this project I follow an artist during his or her day of work. They can be working in their studio or even on the street. I’m interested to capture how the artist gets involved with the workspace and how they go about their work.
How do you see the future of photography in general evolve?
ACC: There are a lot of new kinds of photography coming up that focus on experimentation with the image, the chemicals, even with the camera as an sculptural object. I think that photography is taking a huge step to another level and it can be complicated to understand these developments for people that are used to identify with photography as a figurative art form. But I think that this evolution resonates strongly with young people, so I believe that interesting things are coming and we have to remain open-minded and accept or try to understand new proposals.
Can you explain your fascination for your own body? Or parts of it?
ACC: It’s not really a fascination, and it is not just with my own body. It is simply a very big curiosity that I have been working with in the last couple of years. It wasn’t until I came to Belgium that the subject appeared so strongly in my work, I think that before that I was very shy to do it. Maybe it was because of the loneliness that I experience here sometimes. I began to connect with myself, and recognize and confront myself by looking at my body or parts of it. I started to realize how my body was changing through that experience of loneliness and displacement. Then a friend came to visit me and she allowed me to take some pictures of her, and that made me notice how fragile we can be and that the action of being naked can make you feel unprotected, but at the same time very human.
Then I started to take pictures of what was going on around my daily life, and one of the subjects was my relationship and how our bodies react to each other. So in fact there is a strong undercurrent of curiosity, related to how I see the body and how the body reacts in different situations.
Also you like to take pictures from objects, like there are plants, flowers, or body parts… is this part of the way you see life? Fragments of reality through the camera?
ACC: Definitely. That is the way I’m seeing/experiencing my life today, these are things that are surround me all day. Sometimes I don’t take pictures of them, I just prefer to be quiet and observe these little gestures or fragments as a sort of practice, a practice of observation.
There are moments that I see a combination of things that I like, for instance the way objects or plants, flowers, parts of bodies, the light (the light is very important for me) or the shadows all come together. When you capture that in a picture, it becomes like a little sculpture for me, a memory that I like to collect. The perfect time (for me), frozen in a picture.
Let’s start talking about your experience in Urbanautica. Since September 2014 you have been head of Urbanautica Belgium, an exemplary model that has now been taken up in other countries. Can you tell us about this experience? What are the ideas and projects for the future?
Dieter Debruyne (DD): First of all, I have to say I was rather surprised when you asked me to host the Belgian page for Urbanautica. (It’s still a mystery to me and we still have to talk about this some time.) But, I felt honored by this opportunity and I immediately grabbed it with both hands. I remember that my first interview with Peter Waterschoot was on a Sunday evening. Peter answered me within the hour. The second interview with Karin Borghouts was one you suggested to me and since then things are rolling along nicely. After a couple of interviews I quickly realized I couldn’t handle it alone. I’m more of a photographer with a healthy sense of curiosity for fellow artists than I am a writer or journalist. Peter Waterschoot was the first I’ve contacted to help me out. I knew his English and writing skills are above mediocre and his knowledge of the Belgian art-scene and love for art-books also made him the ideal colleague for the book review section of Urbanautica. I also have to mention the job done by Sylvie de Weze for taking care of the agenda on the Belgian page and let us not forget David Marlé for his contributions and suggestions. And there’s also some new blood in town; Lina Manousogianakki. I hope to meet her soon in Brussels.
Urbanautica Portfolio Review at Zebrastraat, Ghent, 2014
For me Urbanautica is an opportunity to give coverage to lesser-known photographers, to map the Belgian scene and to expand this network. I still have a long list of artists who I want to cover. But, my approach will be different in the future. I will still use the same Q&A but also try to get some background on the artist. With these answers and the extra background info I want to delve deeper into the body of work with personalized questions. The current pace of interviews will be slower, but they will be more interesting. I will start using this approach as soon as our new website is launched by end of the year. Urbanautica isn’t only a website anymore. There’s a lot of things happening that aren’t visible on the web yet. Urbanautica wants to be more than a digital platform in the future. We already did a first testrun in June with the Belgian portfolio review. In Arles was the launch of Urbanautica Collections in collaboration with L’Artiere Edizionne… and Urbanautica will be present on Unseen in Amsterdam.
You have accomplished many meetings and interviews in recent months to deepen the photographic scene in Belgium. What are your personal impressions?
DD: I’m still trying to grasp and map the Belgian scene as objectively as I can. It’s an impossible job, but very instructive. It would be easy to just cover the well-known photographers, like Dirk Braeckman or Geert Goiris or Carl de Keyzer and so on… It’s not that I ignore them, and I will interview them eventually. For me personally it’s more about the young and emerging photographers. However, to boost the website I will occasionally give coverage to the established.
It would be perfect to have different editors in different cities in Belgium. For example, someone who only concentrates on Antwerp or Brussels. This is at the same time an open call to fellow artists who want to contribute to Urbanautica. It’s totally voluntary but stress-free and a chance to be part of a large and international network.
Photography is a very rich field of observation and a constantly evolving language. What are your thoughts on this important topic?
DD: I think everybody has to embrace the possibilities that digital photography is giving us. Like the Cubists (Picasso, Duchamp, …) turned the world of painting upside down; digital photography will do the same. The nostalgic feeling of black and white photography is not a thing that we should be hanging on to for decades to come. There’s a counter-movement of analogue photography which I appreciate, but for me it belongs to the past. Everything comes in waves in the art-world. There is no such thing as contemporary art. Art in the now is inevitably fed by the past. This holds true for photography, too!
Tell us about your educational background. Where did you study? How was your educational experience? What were the courses, the teachers, the materials that have influenced your path?
DD: I don’t have a typical background and I took some breaks during my education. I went to both Flemish Royal Academies. My first year was in Ghent and at that time I was more interested in music. After that year I moved from Ghent to Antwerp. It was there that I fell in love with the 4/5 inch format. We immediately had a studio assignment for a whole semester with a large format camera,whereas in Ghent the emphasis was all on 35mm documentary photography and printing techniques.
I stayed in Antwerp for three years but then decided to go back to the Royal academy of Ghent, as I was living there already and the courses are better. In between that change I spent a few years outside of school/the education system, though. That was also the time when digital photography evolved to the first real DSLR’s. I bought myself a Nikon d70 and started experimenting with it.
In that first year back in Ghent, we had an assignment around the concept ‘space’ which was for me more a continuation of what I learned in Antwerp. I experimented by taking pictures during the night for an uncanny feeling. I changed my photographic work back to black and white photography in stark contrast with Antwerp which accented colour photography. You’ll find the synthesis of these two courses in my portfolio: Colour photography, 4/5 inch format and a sole interest in spaces.
We often speak of the contrast between analog and digital. But perhaps the real thing is the development of social networks and how they affect the production of the images, and their consumption. What is your opinion on the merits [of social networking]?
DD: It has made it easier to show and share your work but there is also an abundance of pictures shown. Sometimes I wonder why I have to watch an image. There are a lot of different apps on the web for photographers. For me it’s not easy to track all those different ways of showing. So I made it easy and I stay with Facebook, Tumblr and Flickr. These three I use for different purposes. But hey, everyone is free to use the web and the apps as they please. And that’s a good thing. I limit myself in order not be in front of the screen all the time.
A second benefit about digital photography is that I don’t have to throw my chemicals down the drain anymore.
Your personal work, through which you have photographed several public buildings in some ways recalls the reflections on the role of institutions, public space, forms of government. Tell us about this?
DD: I have to say what I photograph now is a continuation of ‘Exit Through The Entrance’. During this work where I photographed public spaces, I would sometimes open a closed door where I encountered a typical meeting room. You know these kind of rooms with an enormous table and microphones, expensive artwork on the walls and so on… At that moment I felt a sense of power and serious decision-making. ‘EttE’ was also more a stylistic exercise on colour and graphics: fine-tuning my photography.
After this I concentrated on content and that’s what I’m still occupied with. The working title is ‘Stille getuigen’ (Silent Witnesses). It’s all about that uncanny feeling I have described before. My search leads me to all sorts of buildings, e.g. courts, catholic institutions, business clubs… There are some things that strike me in those interiors. They were made to make people feel small and to bow and kneel for the men in power. Also symmetry; it strikes me that the interiors are mostly arranged symmetrical. Maybe for a sense of tranquility and peace. It’s not easy for me to make interesting compositions with this kind of symmetry. Sometimes I acknowledge it and other times I try to break the symmetry and make a picture that, composition-wise, is not as easy to look at.
When interviewing photographers on Urbanautica we often ask to suggest books or significant exhibitions. Do you have some highlights to share with our readers?
1. ‘Artist book The house’, 2014, by Karin Borghouts The House (of my childhood burned down and I went in to take pictures) 2. ‘Belgian Autumn’, 2015, by Jan Rosseel 3. ‘Pandora’s Camera (photgr@phy after photography)’, 2014, by Joan Fontcuberta 4. ‘An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar’, 2008, by Taryn Simon 5. ‘Geert Goiris’, FOAM, Amsterdam, 2015
Suggestions:
- ‘James Turrel’ in De Pont, Tilburg, 2015 - ‘Jan Rosseel’, FOMU, Antwerp 2015
Photographically speaking what are your future plans?
DD: I’m still taking pictures of interiors, but a second chapter is coming up and that’s going to deal with the same subject, but in new, glass constructions only. I’ll keep on archiving and indexing those interiors until I have a stock to choose from to make and to publish a book. Some exhibitions are scheduled and there’s my work for Urbanautica of course!!
Here and then in Urbanautica Hong Kong, we receive submissions from photographers around the world who produce bodies of work about Hong Kong. This series is our attempt to showcase these works, creating a more diverse perspective on the way.
For our first instalment, we have Emmanuel Serna. The french photographer has been a freelance photographer in Hong Kong since 2010. During his years living in rural Hong Kong, he had come to find out that what he thought were his neighbours, were in fact refugees who live a rather different lives than he does. His series entitled ‘No Life’ is a photojournalistic documentary that reveals a often unknown and grim side of this Asian financial hub and metropolis, mostly unknown by outsiders or even local citizens.
In his artist statement, he said:
«According to official figures, there are about 10,000 asylum seekers in the territory of Hong Kong, mostly coming from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Nepal ; there are also a small number of them from Somalia, Eritrea and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Most of them have fled persecution in their country, hoping to find refuge in Hong Kong.
Upon their arrival to Hong Kong, the refugees stay in the detention centre while their passports are confiscated, they are registered as asylum seeker or as a victim of torture. On average it takes 3 years to process their applications, but some are still waiting after eight years.
In a city where rents are among the highest in the world, refugees have access only to tiny rooms mostly without windows in unsanitary slums. Initially these slums weren’t intended for habitation, these are old pig and chicken farms, containers or sheet metal and wooden huts built and refurbished by unscrupulous owners who saw here a way to win easy money. These slums are dangerous and often there is the fire because of faulty electrical systems.
This extreme poverty forces the refugees to work illegally, working is is prohibited to them and they risk a sentence of up to three years in prison. Some of them do recycling or sell food, but they spend most of their time in their rooms sleeping or between fellow sufferers to discuss and dream of a better future.
Before starting this documentary, I never imagined that I would be faced with a world so dark, dark in every senses. Dark like these young people full of desire in search of a better future in Hong Kong and who realize that there is no future for them in this city. Dark like these slums where the Hong Kong government let them living by ignoring their situation.»
Whether you are a Hong Kong photographer, a photographer currently based in Hong Kong or have created work on Hong Kong, if you have a strong body of work, please send us a series of images (jpg,1200px on the longest side), your artist statement and a short bio to kenneth@urbanautica.com
What was your educational path and how did it influence you?
Carina Hesper (CH): After studying fashion design for two years I switched to the fine art department of the ArtEZ School of the Arts in Arnhem, the Netherlands. At the fine art department I focused on lens-based media. I call myself a visual artist rather than a photographer. Currently I work a lot with photography to develop my concepts and ideas but in the near future it could also be video and new media only.
During my years of studying fashion design, my love for great design in general was born. Even though I studied fine art afterwards, I still love design as much as I love art. I believe my work is in between art and design, and the fact that my school focused mainly on design - with fine art as the smallest department - influenced me for certain.
Is there any teacher or fellow artist that has allowed you to better understand your work?
CH: Many teachers helped me to understand my work better, like Marnix de Nijs and Korrie Besems. But also many artists, designers and photographers influenced me. If I see a work that both conceptually and design-wise is perfectly developed, I intuitively feel that it is the language I am also speaking. To me people who speak this language for example are designer Christien Meindertsma with her book ‘Pig 05049′, fashion designer Hussein Chalayan’s collections and creative approach in general and also Anish Kapoor’s work Ascension on the Venice biennale of 2011; furthermore, the exhibition- and book ‘UMBRA’ by Viviane Sassen and Guido van der Werve’s ‘Number 8’. A photography project I greatly admire is Angélica Dass‘Humanae’. And I love everything musician Stromae puts his mind on. The music is great, the video clips are amazing and he even thought of his clothes and made a collection out of it. And behind all this is his mission to talk about social issues like alcoholism, cancer and depression in daily life.
How would you describe your work in general? What kind of photographer are you?
CH: I aim to connect with the viewer through the portraits I make. Sometimes by capturing my own (possibly manipulated) face, but also by working with people with a special or marginal position in society. Often this results in works of art that are confrontational rather than comfortable, compelling the viewer to take a stand, and to reflect on social issues and developments.
You are now working on a book called ‘Like A Pearl In My Hand’. Can you tell us about this project?
CH: In my ‘to be’ book ‘Like a Pearl in my Hand’, I reveal a side of China that is mostly hidden from the outside world. Many parents in China give up their newborn child when they find out that the child is visually impaired. This is a consequence of the One-Child policy (formally ‘relaxed’ in 2013) and the loss of face associated with having a child with a disability. Touched by these children’s fate, I visited different locations of the Bethel orphanage in Beijing, where I photographed children with a visual impairment. The more time I spent with these children, the less I saw their disability. That is why I wanted to photograph them in their unique way. Just as children, not as victims.
‘Like a Pearl in my Hand’ will be presented as a limited and signed edition book. The book will contain 32 portraits, all fully coated in black thermo-chromatic ink. This ink gets transparent when the temperature exceeds 25 degrees Celsius. So when you touch the black page with a warm hand, the underlying portrait of the visually impaired child is revealed. This way, form and content are brought together in a unique and interactive way; the blind children, their concealment from society and the touch that is needed to see their portraits. The reader experiences what it is like to be without sight and becomes actively involved in the fate of a group of vulnerable children. The book adds a tangible dimension to the medium of photography – a medium that is predominantly about seeing and being seen.
What role does the passing of time play in your work?
CH: Time always plays a different role in my work.
In my series ‘Black Fire, White Ashes’, which are abstract colour pictures of burned down houses, I am mainly interested in the temporality of the location in this state. As soon as it is renovated, you will never find it back.
My series ‘Pigment’ is about the changing colour of the paper and the photograph itself after putting it in the sun for some time. The colour pink disappears more and more, depending on the amount of time that you expose it to the sun.
In ‘Portrait Series No.1′ it takes about 5 seconds before the portrait starts following you with her eyes. If you pass it quickly, nothing happens.
And in my project and book ‘Like a Pearl in my Hand’ it is about the experience, effort and time that it takes to reveal the portrait underneath the black thermo chromatic ink.
You have made an app, an interactive book. Are you specifically looking for new ways to present photography?
CH: If I am developing new work, I always try to find the right medium and form that perfectly fits my concept. For my app ‘Portrait Series No.1′ I collaborated with V2_Institute for the Unstable Media. The idea was to develop a modern Mona Lisa, inspired by my own transgender brother. ‘Portrait Series No.1′ is an interactive portrait that plays with the human gaze and behaviour. Related to old oil paintings and to photography, this portrait focuses on androgyny; the fine line between masculinity and femininity. The work questions how we look at art, which usually is patient to be looked at. I like the subtleness of the work.
It is great that by creating an app, my art is available to everyone in the world, because of the app store and the very affordable price. You can literally ‘bring it home’, after seeing it live-size in an exhibition. This work will be developed in a series of more interactive portraits based on human behaviour in the near future. So yes, I am interested in new ways to present photography, but I am not very aware while doing so. This is my language and I like the viewer to be very much involved.
Can you give us an insight in your day-to-day working life? Do you spend most of your time in your studio or out photographing or doing other things? Do you have any rituals that help you to be creative and productive?
CH: For example, today I started with sending some important emails. After that I travelled to Amersfoort, the Netherlands, to attend a meeting of ‘Make a Memory’. Afterwards I travelled back to Rotterdam. Had dinner. In the evening I continued writing a workshop text and writing this interview.
On a daily basis, I try to be in the studio as much as I can, but if I am working on computer-related stuff I also love to work from home. Now I am mainly focusing on making my Kickstarter campaign for my book ‘Like a Pearl in my Hand’ a successful one. This means I am working on texts, press releases, approaching companies for support, trying to give as many talks as possible and send a lot of emails. Maybe not very creative, but an important part of my job. In the meantime I am preparing for my exhibition at the Schiedam Photo festival this month.
In January 2016 I am planning to travel again. During this time my focus will be researching, photographing and developing new work. Every day is a different day.
My rituals besides art are doing ballet, yoga, running and power workouts and learning Chinese. I am sportive, and I like the fact that you are in control when you learn a language. Completely different than in art, where you only have control on working your ass off.
In your opinion, what is the hardest part about being a photographer? And what is the best part?
CH: The hardest part is that you need to motivate yourself every day and really need to believe in what you do, even if it is tough and nobody believes in what you are doing. The best part is that I travel to great places and meet extraordinary people. I can choose every day what I do or work on. Making my ideas and dreams come to life makes it all worth it.
What projects are you currently working on and what are your plans for the future?
CH: Besides my book ‘Like a Pearl in my Hand’, I am currently working on finishing my series ‘Pigment’ in an installation and book. And I will be further developing my series ‘Lucky Flowers’ in China. My plans for the future are to work on another project with thermo chromatic- or interactive ink, and to do more collaborations with people and institutes like V2_.
