BY STEVE BISSON
I receive many books on photography. And sometimes it’s embarrassing, I would like to respond faster. However, for me, writing is more than just a job, or an exercise. Through the writing I crop the time to think. As in a ritual. The book by Nuno Moreira has remained on my bookshelf for some time. Then one day I opened it. Then the next day I did it again. I slowly realized that it would be difficult but mostly useless to write about this book without the involvement of the author. It would come out a grotesque attempt to frame an emotional work. Made of moments of silence and insights. Shortly rational. I would end up quoting some of the important white black photographer. But to what end? So this is why we have come to this interview. To present your book Nuno I would like to start from your premise. I find that it well introduces the essence of this publication. Sharing your emotional empathy with the world through photography is an act of generosity or at least it breaks a sense of loneliness. What drove you to this point of consciousness? How does this project reflect your personal research?
I agree with your observations, Steve, working with images enables me to create visual narratives - which are fortunately very ambiguous in their nature - but also, and most importantly, to analyse my role within the creative process. You see, thinking and working in artistic projects is for me a form of self-discovery. I take a topic that matters to me on a personal level and research and delve into it as much as possible to come up with answers that get closer to some sort of truth. Something that reverberates within me and possibly with the viewer as well. Fact of the matter is that any form of art is (in many aspects) only a personal dialogue of the artist.
When I’m working on a given project – be it a new series of photographs, a design piece, a photo-montage, whatnot, I’m not thinking about the outside world that much or if someone will understand what I’m trying to express – I’m more concerned in letting myself get in the zone of creation and in being truthful with my emotions and instincts and let that guide me along the way. It’s about questioning and looking and repositioning yourself everytime the perspective changes. That’s the motion of creating an art piece: this selfish pursuit to find something, tease someone, or heal a part of oneself that is looking to be resolved. If there are no issues, frustrations, questions, why create? With “State of Mind” I was dealing with topics of how to perceive inner emotions and the process of individuation. How should we view ourselves and others when they are in crisis or transition? Is it right to give time to other people? Are we in any position to demand time from others? Can we really ever understand how someone else thinks and feels or is it all just in our heads? How can I stay true to my own natural rhythm? These were all questions I was trying to get a response while working on this series and the resulting book.
2. Many of the subjects that you have photographed during your travels are lonely people. They are the silent people in your look. However, from this silence begins the recognition of a state of mind. In your approach to people there is a sense of respect for this silence. There is no urge to shout, upset, rape through the medium. How do you recognize yourself in the people you photograph?
I recognize myself immensely in my work and I believe that’s why it’s so natural for me to notice these people immediately and approach them in order to register what I see. You have to understand that to me the person who sits quietly in the corner observing seems always the most interesting and fascinating of the bunch, and that’s most likely because I am also an observer myself. So, yes, it’s only natural that I pay respect to the more quiet people and their “thinking moments” because they’re usually the most peculiar and interesting to talk with and photograph. Having said this, do you know the expression “beware of the quiet ones”? Being shy or introspective doesn’t necessarily mean you’re the most balanced person around…
A statement I wished to pass with the “State of Mind” series is that it’s perfectly all right to be a lonely person and to respect your sense of space and time. The way our lives are build nowadays society makes us feel like we don’t deserve to have free time, we feel guilty, and we tend to forget what was it we enjoyed doing when there’s nothing left to be done. You know, I realized this when I started pursuing what I wanted to do with my life and what made me truly satisfied. It’s interesting and scary but most people really don’t know how to stand still for about 30 minutes without starting to do something. I’m not talking about zen meditation here, I’m talking about regaining consciousness on who you are and how to feel good in your own skin. If you stop everything around you – and I mean shutting down everything – you’ll see what I mean. It tickles. I’m interested in what happens when things stop. That will most probably be the starting point for my next project.
3. Tell us about your photographic influences. Also books, people, art works, stories through which you have acquired significant tools to better interpret your reality.
I like researching a lot and I think all great work comes out of doing research and rethinking things through. I always liked digging and discovering new material in the realms of music, cinema or literature and the feeling of being excited by the new avenues this can open in ones mind. Language and visual arts are in general very projective tools – one can feel stimulated by discovering new forms of expression or just new angles to tackle identical issues. One thing I discovered by looking at so many images is that as an artist you have to come to terms with this idea that you’re not skilled doing a whole lot of different things. Actually, ones natural given abilities and sense of purpose is very narrow, yet if it is recognized and exercised regularly it is indeed unique and can be used in a meaningful way.
To find what you’re good at doing (or expressing) and just keep doing that and working to reach some sort of “perfection” (whatever that word means) is really the best sense of direction you can have. I’ve come to realise that most meaningful artists are not playing the seven instruments at once, they come to peace with their limitations and discover their personal voice (some say it’s a calling), and that’s what makes other people understand them and make them universally appealing – it’s their individual sense of uniqueness and the vast amount of pieces produced using that sense of language. When I’m reading, watching a movie, looking at a painting, I’m allowing myself to clear my emotions and make the illusive effort of walking in the same shoes as the creator. That’s a spring-board into what that piece might mean or at least… If it makes any sense in the context of my future realizations and efforts.
The way I see it, one can choose to discover the world looking outwards or inwards. Personally, I find it more challenging and fulfilling to have my mind expanding inwards and use art not as a mere commodity tool but as a necessity to deposit my wishes, fantasies, urges and frustrations. Fortunately I’m not alone in this kind of self-cathartic scenario so there’s an almost infinite number of interesting works out there to discover… or rediscover.
4. Tell us about an instant, an episode among those you have frozen through the camera. With your words help us to build a scene, imagine a different place.
Earlier today I was doing a phone interview and someone said the pictures on the book seemed to be taken from a ghost point-of-view because the people don’t seem to notice the presence of the photographer yet there is a lot of silent tension involved. I never thought about my work in that way, but I suppose it’s flattering because to me photography is really about creating a sense of awe and imagination. Images have this power of transporting the viewer into a realm beyond time.
Actually I don’t know if I agree with the idea of photography freezing time, I think it’s more about creating another sense of time or opening a door into an unknown territory that can stir and move you differently because there’s really no physical touch involved when you’re looking at a photo. The photo is just there as a separate entity; like a ghost in front of you. The kind of images I’m pursuing are very similar with music or theatre because they’re trying to build an atmosphere and create some sort of wordless storytelling. Many times I take photos of people I meet or happen to see and I just smile and continue as if that moment was a special thing that only me and that person understood. Do you know what I mean?
5. Many photos among those included in the book were made in Japan. What struck you most of the places you have seen? What do you find very distant from your personal culture.
Many photos in the book feature Asian-looking persons but they are not entirely shot in Japan. The reality is that I kept many of the latest photos I did while travelling through Asian countries such as Malaysia, south-Korea or Taiwan because they were simply better than the old ones and more in-tune with the overall concept of the book. The faces might look Japanese but they are really Asian in general. Answering the second part of your question, what stroke me most about Japan when I first visited back in 2011 (right after the big tsunami) was discovering a country so self-absorbed in it’s own cultural obsessions and millenary traditions.
The biggest difference I’ve noticed here compared with European countries is the way the individual is so deeply immersed in society and is viewed as such an indispensable part of the whole. There’s an innate sense of social responsibility that the common Japanese feels he has to fulfil as part of the collective work force. This is totally a work-driven society and people are raised to feel proud in being that way, which to some degree might seem totally outrageous to a western mind more driven by pleasure, or on the other hand an interesting motif to take photographs. In Europe I think we are more considerate of our personal needs in first place whilst in Japan first is your work and your role in society and only then there exists you as an individual (if there is any room left for that). The fundamental difference I see between Japan and Europe is this way in which the individual is omitted and pushed to a secondary stage in favour of the collective/surroundings best “atmosphere”.
Even in language, while speaking, the Japanese omit subjects such as “I” and “You”, becoming something implicit in the conversation to not obstruct the real topic of focus and that’s something I find very interesting. I could go on forever about Japan, this really is a one-of-a-kind place and I mean this with all respect.
6. The publication contains many pictures. Taken in different situations and different geographies. Leafing through it several times I realized that I had missed some images. A pleasant feeling that prompted me to re-open the book. Putting these pictures in a row must not have been an easy task. Please tell us about the genesis of the book, its structure and sequence.
You’re not the first person mentioning that the book gets better and discovering new stuff by revisiting it again. That leaves me satisfied because the intention while doing the editing was really to provoke different layers of interpretation so I’m sure the book gets different with time. Anyway, the photographs from this series derive from an archive of travels and different situations spanning from 2009 to 2013 so the making of this series and the edition of the book took different stages and changed a couple of times. At some point I only had photos where you couldn’t actually see the faces of the people, they were not facing the camera. The first photo selection was of about 150 pictures (out of roughly 300) so that left me with the difficult task of discarding many photos. Some people who saw different versions of the mock-up during production actually advised me to publish two books because there was enough material to do that.
The sequencing of the pictures for the book was done by using real prints and physically moving them several times on the wall or on the floor until I felt comfortable with a certain rhythm and “storytelling”. This was difficult to do because more than pictures I had an emotional tie and a personal chronology attached with these images. Looking back, it’s not that I take many pictures either; it was just too much time to prepare and release this monograph altogether. Prior to actually doing this book, one year before I did a small booklet, which was already a study for the book itself, it was a nice way to get comfortable with the concept and show it to some people to get feedback. Now that it’s finally done and the book is released I feel freer to engage in a subsequent project and continue researching some of the topics addressed on “State of Mind”; lets see where this will take me next.
© Nuno Moreira | urbanautica