Zapallal/Yurinaki is a body of work you created in Peru, your
home country, after studying photography in Germany. How did remoteness -
both geographical and mental – influence your vision as a photographer
and your desire to capture this country in images?The idea
behind the series doesn't really restrict my vision of this country in
images, but rather focuses on issues relevant to Peru's socially,
economically and politically centralized system. Peru's social landscape
changed a lot between 2000 and 2010, but there were several remaining
issues I was still interested in.
The mental and physical distance I
experienced while I was living in Berlin allowed me to be become more
sensitive to these issues. Without this distance, I might have had
trouble in seeing things clearly, as happens when I become too attached
to a certain idea. When I returned to Peru to produce the project, I did
feel a kind of gap at the beginning (mostly during pre-production) but
fortunately it didn't last long. As soon as I started to make contact
with the people I was going to photograph and work with, my workflow
became more intuitive. The connection with my subjects is ultimately
what fuels my projects.
Your picture "Carretera" is
ambivalent, walking a fine line between landscape and still-life. Like
many of your images, it hypnotizes: it is an appealing and seductive
image (of newfound sensuality amidst chaos) which also powerfully
expresses dramatic tension. How do you use colour and lighting to
achieve this?Some of my images can be interpreted in a sensorial
manner: the use of external lighting allows me to enhance certain
aspects of my motifs (vibrant red flowers for instance), while bringing
out textures and information to the surface. Most of the time, when
people work on themes with a social background, there are many details,
and a certain beauty (reflecting progress, care and collectivism for
example) that remains hidden or ignored. I'm aware of the living
conditions of these communities and how fragile their environment can
be; I don't want to hide nor ignore these aspects or other problems
related to poverty, but I always try to find different ways of
representing social issues (different from what you usually see in the
mainstream media) so that people can face these problems and analyse
them from a new perspective.
"Sarnai", like your other portrait work, is posed. How do you work with the sitter ?In
my first project, "Conditions", there are many subjects with
unconventional appearances, but decisions about who I work with are not
necessarily based on the way they look. First, there has to be a certain
relationship with them in order to compose the images. I try to work
with my subjects in a collective manner, to create specific situations
and bring out a form of intimacy in order to invite the viewer to share a
moment with them and reconsider new aspects of mutual acceptance.
In both series, you interlink portraits and still lives, how do they interact? Such
combinations help me to construct a personal narrative; some still
lives were composed with the same ideas and emotions as the ones behind
the portraits, while others complete my subjects as an interpretation of
their surroundings.
Can you tell us more about your book Conditions, where the image association and ultimately, the narration, have to be performed by readers themselves?
The series Conditions
deals with ideas of identity, social norm and mutual acceptance. Our
Identity is shaped by a conglomeration of the decisions we make all
along our lives, and the book’s double-binding invites the beholder to
experience something similar as he browses the pages to make his own
combinations.
Limited edition, numbered and signed.