ISSP 2019 Publication - Photography and the World

What’s the main reason
behind your work?
To invert reality. I think I’m obsessed with this idea
to find a kind of crack or gap in reality and give the
possibility to everyone to experience that somehow.
To let it happen in a special moment and celebrate
it, like, “We made it! Here we have in a new reality
within this reality.” And we can do that all the time.
We all live a daily life, each of us has a different one,
but we all have normalisation in our lives. And it’s
about breaking this normalisation. To find new ways
in which these cracks could happen and in which
reality could be shaped in a different way.
How do you first encounter
the places and people
you work with?
Sometimes it’s because somebody invites you to places,
other times you just find them. Usually, it’s because
you get deep into a place. I approach the community
and talk, and then I research after which I go back
to the community and all these things start to play
in the relations of the community, in the relations
between me and the community or the place. And then
altogether it’s shaped, from the tensions between the
people, the place and me. Putting all that together.
Time is essential because if you do something very
quickly in a short period of time, you won’t have
the gaps that give you the space to lose power over
the place and the people. I think this digestion is
really important. It needs to cool down before you
go back. Sometimes they welcome you, sometimes
they don’t want to engage anymore with anything,
and you realise you have to move in a different
way or that it’s not happening anymore.
If something is not absorbed and appropriated
by the community it doesn’t work. It’s something
that happens a lot, that the actions don’t happen if
the community does not appropriate them. Their
involvement is necessary to make something happen.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. And sometimes
it’s the other way around: the people find things
in you that they are really interested in appropriating.
So you are playing with the situation and then things
are starting to happen and they shape it. But it’s very
difficult to keep the balance, so it’s about being responsible
and sensitive with the situation. And giving
them the option all the time to take control.
Expectation is important because it’s what brings
the people to the action. It’s really important to create
expectations, it’s a kind of seduction that makes
051 Should I apologize?
052
What am I waiting for?