BY SYLVIE DE WEZE
1. You studied ‘Visual communication’. What is the difference between this and a ‘classic’ photography degree?
The multidisciplinary approach of the medium. The main idea that influenced me in the visual communication department at La Cambre was that you have to express your concept in the most relevant medium. We gained basic skills in illustration, typography, video, animation, graphic design, edition, etc. (in the applied arts field). I loved this freedom, this multidisciplinary interest and the way of transposing it into personal artistic research. In most of the other art departments (including photography) at La Cambre the starting point of the work is in a specific medium.
© Stéphanie Roland, dead zone, _ _ - _ _
2. What is the most valuable lesson you learned at La Cambre Brussels, where you received your education?
La Cambre learned me that talent or being naturally gifted means nothing if you don’t have the will and the energy to develop your work. I never felt particularly talented nor hopeless, so I was really stimulated by this idea.
3. When did you choose photography as a principal or preferred medium?
I started taking evening classes in photography when I was 16 years old and I really loved it. Especially the process of developing black and white film. I loved the feeling of being in a dark laboratory. I’ve always pursued photography, but began to take the medium more seriously at the end of my training at La Cambre, developing the series “Les enfants-modèles”.
4. You use other media as well. What effect do you to intend by mixing several media?
I am interested in the potential experience they can offer to the visitor, in their potential to interact with the visitor and to create a spatial experience.
© Stéphanie Roland, Portraits, _ _: _ _, thermochromic silkscreen cards, 2011
5. Which fascination lies at the base of your series “Les enfants-modèles”?
I feel concerned about a certain idea of happiness that is implicitly imposed upon us from our childhood to our death. I really love the way filmmakers like Pasolini or Hanneke deconstruct this vision of happiness in their work. I have a strong interest in the connection between death and photography. The theme resonates in all of my work.
6. Which part does digital manipulation play in your photography?
Digital manipulation is just one tool among many others to achieve the result I want. However, I’m frugal with manipulation because I like to construct real things for pictures and I love to try to find the best light possible for my pictures. However, coming from another background, I find the orthodoxy of some photographers who are afraid of or reject digital manipulation weird. It’s just a (relatively) contemporary tool that can be carefully chosen to work with or not.
7. For “Ideal City" you turned to science. What did you gain from this collaboration?
I came to realise that there exists more common methods and problems in the artistic and scientific research than I’d ever thought, even if they constitute two different worlds. Both share the same hunger for experimentation and an interest in serendipity (Serendipity, sometimes called ‘accidental discovery’, is originally an unexpected scientific discovery. The result of a combination of fortuitous circumstances in the context of a search for another subject) .
© Stéphanie Roland,Museum of XXIst century, _ _ - _ _ , from the series ‘Ideal City’, 2013
8. What were your main sources of inspiration for “Ideal City”?
A mix of literature, movies and scientific readings:
"Brave new world", Aldous Huxley
"1984", Georges Orwell
"The black hole", Charles burns
"Martian Chronicles", Ray Bradburry
"Melancholia", Lars Von Trier
"Solaris", Andreï Tarkovsky
Caspar David Friedrich’s paintings
Boards of Canada’s music
"La jetée", Chris Marker
"12 donkeys" and "Brazil", Terry Gilliam
NASA pictures
ESO newsletters
"Science et vie" magazine.
9. How do your new projects come into being? How would you describe your personal research?
First of all I’m obsessed with a lot of mental images. I try to draw or express them in the little notebooks I always keep with me. Sometimes I organize and stage the picture. In parallel, I read and see new things around me. The process oscillates between intuition and new knowledge about the topics that are of interest to me.
© Stéphanie Roland, Piscine, _ _ - _ _, from the series ‘Time Suspended’
10. You’re keen on applying different techniques like thermochromic printing. What is your latest discovery and how do you intend to use it?
I am working on a photo book in augmented reality, but it is still work in progress.
11. Is there any contemporary artist or photographer, even if young and emerging, that influenced you in some way?
I’m influenced by photographers that ‘construct’ new realities such as Andreas Gursky, Thomas Demand and Gregory Crewdson. Philip Corcia-Di Lorca’s early works also fascinate me because of the way he injects fiction into everyday moments. His approach is related to George Perec’s interesting notion of the”infra-ordinaire”. I’m also passionate about the notion of time in photography and video. There lies my attraction to Bill Viola and David Claerbout’s work. Bill Viola’s retrospective in the Grand Palais in Paris was a great moment of amazement to me.
12. Which photo books are on your bucket list?
"Sweet-earth experimentals Utopia in America", Joel Sternfeld
"Gregory Crewdson", Gregory Crewdson
"Moments before the flood", Carl de Keyzer
"Het zwart gaat", Anouk Kruithof & Jaap Scheren
"Will they sing like Raindrops or Leave Me Thirsty", Max Pinckers
"Soeurs, saintes et sibylles", Nan Goldin
"Your house", Olafur Eliasson
"RGB colorspace atlas", Tauba Auerbach
© Stéphanie Roland, Violette, _ _ - _ _ , from the series ‘Les enfants-modèles, photographie’, 2011
13. Can you sketch us the most recent project(s) you’re working on?
I’m working on a new photographic series about family rituals, weddings, ceremonies, etc. And I’m also the artistic director of a movie inspired by my pictures. That’s a very interesting project I direct together with Benjamin Behaegel, an amazing Parisian movie maker. He saw my pictures in an exhibition and proposed to collaborate on a short movie we shoot in February 2015. A new fascinating field is opening up to me.
14. Tell us something about your upcoming shows abroad and/or in Belgium?
In 2015, I will cross the ocean for shows in Richmond (USA), San Francisco, Montreal and Quebec. I will also have a huge solo show in July at Triangle Bleu, the gallery that represents me in Belgium. There I will show a varied and new body of work and some in-situ pieces.