Question Time with Giorgio Barrera

Giorgio Barrera ©

Few months ago I asked Giorgio Barrera , who has an interesting mix of projects, to take part in our question time. I was delighted when he agreed and after a period conflicting commitments we arrange to talk about his work.

Ph39 - In the project "Through the Window " do people in the images lives in those houses or are they actors?

GB - Both things are happening and that the two things coexist in some cases.

Ph39 - What kind of involvement do they have during the seen? What kind of feedback, if any, do you get when they see the final image?

GB - It does not happen often that I have a feedback from people. The people who participate in the photographs they do enjoy it, because of curious situations that occur during the shooting and sometime they like the act of being themselves. Once I asked a girl to foot the person in front of her and she told me that this was something she had never done and that would have liked to do.

Ph39 -In this series you seems to have an inner and an outer frame. In the inner frame we are seeing private life moment, while on the outer frame you define the context. How do you build your own own idea and the narrative to combine the two frames?


GB - It depends, however in general I would say that the shape of the windows, the architecture of the place and the location of the house suggest to me what will happen. In some occasion I want to represent a circumstance and therefore I have sought a place for this imaginary situation.



Giorgio Barrera ©

Ph39 -In the outer frame we often see neighboring buildings, gardens, bricks detail of houses and to me they all seem to define a social pattern and a way we live in today society. How important is the context of the outer frame in your images?

GB - Earlier research would be especially anthropological, sociological. The places belong to a platform, which accepted a certain social class that I had identified as the middle class that was also the object/subject of my previous work. Later my research has moved on to languages and therefore homes had to be closer to the idea of a scenic container.

Ph39 - I some way by just looking at the final image, this project could be seen as a theatrical practices of representation with carefully staged seen but also as a mere representation of reality. Was this the intent and could you tell us more about it?

GB - There is a sentence of Gilles Deleuze that I am found of "you are in the world in a sound mind and pure." My Pictures want to remain on a threshold where it intends to represent the reality, the everyday in an objective and truthful way. On the same threshold, however, want to deny to the image the opportunity to represent and then tell in a comprehensive way a certain event. I believe to be a representation everything that exists outside of a direct experience of real.

Ph39 - Would you consider your project "Through the Window " as documentary photography and how do you perceive the decisive moment in this work?

GB - In this work for me there is not a decisive moment. The image is not the interpretation of a random moment. I would say that "Through the Window “ is a documentary work and to some extend is looking at the cinematographic photography of Jeff Wall that invites the viewer to ask questions about what we can see and experience.

Ph39 - In your project "Battlefields", you are dealing with historic sight, what inspired you to do this work and can you tell us more about the motivation behind it?

GB - I started this project somewhat randomly and gradually (it took me three years to finish it) I have enriched it with conceptual reasoning. With this series I visit the sites of Battle of the Risorgimento. It is a photographic work that looks at historic landscapes and investigates those sites avoiding the commemorative, epic or didactic. It was mapping a visions of the Italian landscape.

Ph39 - I saw on you website some new interesting narrative work on video. How did you find the transition and is there more to come?

GB – Yes, I hope so. I do not think there has been a shift from photography to video. Sometimes I find myself more comfortable when I prepare and execute a video that a photograph or a series of photographs. If you refer to window # 1333 °, a work made for Jarach Gallery in Venice, almost the opposite of what happens in the series Through the Window took place. The setting is in a foundations in Venice and except for the three actors who play the part no one is allowed to know what is really happening, when the story began, when and how it ends or why. This is another way to emphasize that with images you can say and not say, and above all you can conceal a truth assuming a different one.

Ph39 - I understand over the summer you have spent sometime traveling around northern Europe and working on your projects, any anticipation?

GB - I worked on a project presented for the prize Baume & Mercier. The project aims to collect a series of works showing places within Europe that for geographical, political or cultural reason they are defined as on the borders. In most cases I tell the story by watching what happens in the home through that inner frame that is the window.

Question time with Benedetta Alfieri

Benedetta Alfieri ©

I saw Benedetta Alfieri work for the first time in Reggio Emilia this year during the festival. I was very interested in understanding more about this project that I asked Benedetta to take part in this Question time. (hopefully soon to be in English)

PH39 - In questa tua ricerca che importanza ha l`esperienza del vissuto rappresentato come assenza del corpo?
Benedetta Alfieri - Vissuto e assenza sono il binomio su cui si fonda questa ricerca sul corpo: da una parte, il vissuto è ciò che caratterizza il corpo perchè è attraverso di esso che si esiste e si vive; dall'altra, il corpo è però sottratto alla vista e quindi assente. Esistono allora delle tracce, dei segni, che dicono che qualcosa c'era, c'è stato, ha attraversato, con l'esperienza, gli oggetti fotografati. Non fotografo nuovi ed intonsi abiti, scarpe o "arredi corporei", come sono stati chiamati in diverse occasioni; non faccio fotografia di moda, anche se mi è capitato, e non propongo oggetti contestualizzati che lanciano modelli di vita e immaginari a cui tendere. Mi interessa l'oggetto consumato dall'uso, non necessariamente consunto, ma comunque usato: il vissuto mostra sempre dei segni, anche se a volte impercettibili o delicatissimi. L'esperienza del vissuto è allora fondamentale in questa ricerca: un paio di scarpe fotografate mostrano tagli, macchie, piccole deformazioni, stringhe usurate, modi di annodare i legacci, ecc. Attraverso l'osservazione di un paio di scarpe fotografate, si possono conoscere caratteristiche e vicende del corpo di un essere umano che non si vede.
PH39 - Il corpo evoca l'assenza attraverso le tracce che ha lasciato, raccontaci chi sono state queste persone.
B A - Le immagini esposte a Fotografia Europea sono tutte inedite e costituiscono uno sviluppo della ricerca che porto avanti da qualche anno. L'esordio è stato l'analisi di oggetti provenienti dall'ambiente familiare; in questo caso, invece, gli oggetti fotografati appartengono ad amici e rappresentano dei ritratti, quasi delle carte d'identità. In mostra ci sono indizi precisi, anche se forse silenti, del fatto che le fotografie rimandano a persone in carne ed ossa: nelle didascalie sono indicate infatti le iniziali di nome e cognome, l'anno di nascita e la misura, espressa in cm, del piede della persona ritratta; vere e proprie tracce d'identità considerando che oggetti quali le scarpe raccolgono l'impronta, la gravità, l'incombenza del corpo, la sua simmetria o asimmetria, il suo equilibro e ancora il movimento, il modo di camminare e muoversi nel mondo. Per Reggio Emilia il progetto fotografico si è inscritto in un contesto molto particolare dove già preesistevano altre opere: si è creato così un intervento site specific, un pò ironico, dove diverse opere pittoriche di Cesare Detti sono state scelte per essere abbinate alle fotografie de Il passo negato; in questo modo, si è aggiunto un ulteriore significato alla ricerca, quasi a suggerire che i personaggi ritratti nei quadri, siano usciti per un attimo dalla loro sede per farsi una passeggiata nella contemporaneità e rietrando nei quadri, si siano levati, per educazione, le scarpe.

Benedetta Alfieri ©

PH39 - Nei tuoi lavori i soggetti vengono quasi decontestualizzati su sfondi bianchi, e` un processo che aiuta la soggettivita` dell' oggetto?
B A - Forse sì. Anche se, inizialmente, parlerei di "oggettività dell'oggetto". Mi spiego: la ripresa, il fondo, l'illuminazione, la scelta dei materiali concorrono affinchè l'oggetto si veda con la miglior resa; l'evidenza e la naturalezza, ma anche l'assolutezza, finiscono per creare un'atmosfera di "oggettività", di pretesa oggettività, perchè siamo di fronte a deliberate scelte di linguaggio. Tale pretesa oggettività finisce per favorire una fortissima soggettività, dove gli oggetti riescono a raccontare di soggetti, dove gli oggetti finiscono per dire molto di più di quello che ci si aspetterebbe da loro.
PH39 - Gli oggetti che fotografi hanno loro stessi delle memorie, sono parte di un percorso narrativo?
B A - Gli oggetti fotografati sono già di per sè dei racconti perchè, attraverso caratteristiche e particolari, narrano della loro storia e della storia di chi li ha portati, di chi li ha abitati. Molto spesso, inoltre, questi oggetti hanno tra loro dei rimandi, cromatici o di forma, che corrispondono a legami, relazioni tra le persone. Esistono, in questo universo di oggetti proposti fotograficamente, dei livelli di lettura che vanno dall'elementare considerazione che siamo di fronte a degli oggetti, all'immaginazione della storia che sta dietro agli elementi che li costituiscono, alla costruzione di relazioni tra l'uno e l'altro.
PH39 - I tuoi lavori rispecchiano le dimensioni reali dei soggetti, che importanza ha per te questo rapporto di 1:1?

B A - La dimensione reale ha una notevole importanza: è un elemento di linguaggio, una scelta precisa. Gli oggetti che fotografo ripropongono con esattezza le misure degli oggetti reali. Anche se è ormai banale esplicitarlo, una cosa è un oggetto, una cosa è la fotografia di quell'oggetto: riproposti in 1:1 i soggetti delle fotografie finiscono per avere un effetto straniante, quasi non li si riconoscesse più come oggetti.

Harri Palviranta

Harri Palviranta©

While I was at Photoespana last week i met up with Harri Palviranta at the french embassy in Madrid for the opening party of Agence Vu. Harri is the winner of Descubrimientos 07 and he was at Photoespana with a personal exhibition "Battered". I mentioned to him about http://www.ph39.com/ and after a chat and few drinks he agreed to talk to us about his projects. Here is our conversation via email.

PH39 - Your portfolio contains a mix of landscapes, portraits, reportage and documentary projects that sometime appear so different from one another, is that the case? How do you structure your research for such a wide range of work?

Harri - My artistic trajectory hasn't been straight forward, true. But as I look back to my own work, I see two thematic paths which I seem to keep on being interested in: the first one is issues relating to male being and identity, the other is issues relating to violence. In some
works, for example in "Battered", these themes come together. You are categorising my work through visual generic terms. I mainly work from thematic backround and choose the ways of telling in realtion to that. I am not a portrait photographer, neither a landscape one. I try to approach the topic with most suitable photographic methods available.
The other issue is, how my wide artistic practises relates to my research projects. As you know, I am preparing my PhD at the University of Art and Design Helsinki (http://www.taik.fi/). In my research I am asking whether certain photographic artworks and the ways they are received and understood by the audience can be studied from communicative perspective. From its groundings communicative perspective assumes that if there is communication happening at all,
there needs to be something the “sender” and the “receiver” shares.
Following this the main question in my research is how do the artist’s and viewer’s perspectives and significations relate to each other. Further I ask what are the differences in interpretations and how can they be explained. I am conducting the study (it includes questionairies, qualitative interviews and writings by school classes) in gallery surroundings during the exhibitions and with the artworks that are made by myself. I am conducting the study with three different bodies of work. First one was "Prison sheets", second one is "Battered" and the third one
is still to be made or in progress. So I am not doing the research with all of my work. The thing that ties together the series is the issue (violence) and the photographic/artistic practise or
perspectice (documentary works).

Harri Palviranta©

PH39 - Your work has looked at practises of violence in different ways and in your projects violence is often part of the story being crude, direct or subtle. How do you edit your work, how do you select the ones to show?
Harry - Editing process is an interesting one indeed! I am rather rational in ways I create or embark a project, then I seem to be just going for it, little later when I have some pictures done I start reconsidering my approach and topic and challenges that has appeared. This become a cycle. I quess that is the time I start the editing process also. Then with the final edit it is quite intuitive. I have a tendency of getting little bored with too great repetition, both when making and watching art, so I try to maintain a fresh blow within the series, to built some variation inside it. I am aware of demand to built coherent series, but I wish to maintain possibility for the variation as well. I think the final edit is something that goes visually well together, that has variation in it, that offers possibilities to variety of argumentative approaches. The edit also always changes according to exhibition place.

Harri Palviranta©

PH39 - In "Badscapes" you deal with historic and contemporary war sites, how did you research start for this subject, and would you consider it an ongoing project?
Harry -This theme keeps on interesting me, but as it is an issue that has been photographically studied rather widely (Simon Norfolk, Paul Graham, Paul Seawright, Ari Saarto amongst may others), I try to keep my hands off it! This project of mine, "Badscapes" and "On Violence", that started 1999 had rather personal starting points. In Finnish history and contemporary Finnish landscape there are a lot of places, both concrete landscapes and mindscapes, that are regognized and also celebrated through and bacause of their war ralated connotations. I bacame interested in this ceremonial orientation and the normality building processes that the places represented. I still have few projects going on that are related to this issue. On the other hand, I would not like to repeat me over and over again.


PH39 -In "Battered" you went out in Turku, a stutent town not far from where you live, sometime on your own and with police during weekend nights. How did you look for subjects and what kind of reactions did you get from the people living daytime Turku?
Harry - When I started the "Battered" project I was actually living in Turku. It is a town of some 230 000 inhabitants including the surrounding areas. I had done many of my previous projects far away from my home so I thought that maybe I should look at my home ground as well. The topic is very self evident in Finland, no one just had done it before. Of course it was difficult to execute. Most nights I was just wasting my time, I didn't come accross any fights. Once you look at them, they become hard to find. And then sometimes you can see many of them during the same night. And certainly I was not able to photograph all the people I saw beaten up, no way. Some people regognized me during the daytime, but it was not a trouble or benefit either. And when the work came public, when it was exhibited for the first time in Helsinki, Finland, it caused a some sort of media reaction and discussion. Then some people regognized me again. Of course then I was living in Helsinki. There are some controversial issues in the work, some ethical questions can be raised. Minor waves aroused in Finland.
Harri Palviranta©
PH39 - In your street style social documentarism has probably taken you into some awkward situation. Do you explain to people what your project is about or maybe not? Tell us of some of the problems if any, you have run into? Harry - When approaching people with my camera I made it clear that I am photographing them. I never photographed people without a verbal consent. I explained them briefly who I am and what I am doing, and then took the pictures. All the people in the photographs are aware that they have been photographed. There has been some questions whether all the people fully comprehended what my aim was, but this is an issue always. The ethical controverises I mentioned link to this one here. I kind of trusted that the people I photographed were adults and in their full understanding. None of them were fully drunk or unconscious. In Finland it is legal to photograph everything that happens in public space, including people. When publishing pictures there are then some more restrictions.


PH39 - In the past few years more photographers have developed fine art documentary project. You said to me that you consider yourself a socially orientated photographer, can you see a boundary between social documentary and art photography, how you see your work fitting into this?
Harri - This generic categorizing between documentary and art photography is an interesting one. It is kind of a comparative synonym to realistic and fiction. Or to documentary and post documentary. These divisions and separations, they all both amuse and annoy me. I know photographers / artists that do not want to get affiliated with photography festivals or galleries because these are not contemporary art related events or locations, according to their taste and understanding. These same photographers / artists happily take their work to Paris Photo or Berlin art fairs. Here they choose commercialism rather than uncommersially oriented festivals. My position as socially orientes photographer or artist is a reflection from this: I understand art having multiple possibilities in contemporary societies, one of them is a critical voise. I do not want a situation, where art's attractivity gets defined only through its commercial success. Art possesses qualities beyond commercial values, this is certain both from historical or contemporary point of view. To put it another words, I see a kind of boundary between documentary and art photography, also between press and documentary photography or between high quality aesthetic and more thematically oriented photographic art etc, but I would like to see them all alive and well, none of them being descriminated. It just can be that somehow many contemporary artists are afraid of political orientation or biased perspectives, that global economy has redused them to mere economical agents. I wish art could be more than just a joy.

PH39 - When i met you in Madrid last week we talked about your Phd research at the University of Helsinki, surely a great opportunity to focus more on future projects. Would you mind telling us more about it?
Harri - University of Art and Design Helsinki (http://www.taik.fi/) is very high quality University level art and design school, I would say. In photogarphic art it has a BA program, a MA program and an ever developing PhD program. Altogether the photography education in Finland is very high level. The University of Art and Design is going through a great change just now, it is to be changed to foundation owned university instead being only state funded. More likely this means more money, and more research vacancies and funding to practise based art research projects. It is a good place to work. My funding goes until end of 2011. I am a part of larger project called The Doctoral School of Communication Studies CORE. It has researchers from various disciplines.

Rites of Passage con Przemysław Pokrycki Pryma

© Przemysław Pokrycki

Di recente ho visto alcuni lavori di Przemysław Pokrycki Pryma, giovane fotografo polacco. In particolare mi interessava il progetto Rites of Passage, gentilmente ci ha concesso questa intervista via email.

PH39 - Tell us about your work? Przemysław Pokrycki Pryma - With my work I want to show a piece of every day life. People in their surrounding, usually at work or at home. I'm interested in general in a man in his/her surrounding.

PH39 -Your works describes social every day life or is there more to it? PPP - Interpretation is up to the one who is watching. I'm photographing a little bit like an amateur, a layman: people in the centre of a picture and a lot of background visible. Most of amateur pictures look like this. From my experience I know that interpretation depends mostly an a person who looks at a picture. I don't want to make up any philosophy or ideology to my work. I make a documentary, that is all from me. Now it is up to sociologist to discuss about life condition, social classes or whatever they want. Art critics may discus about aesthetic value. And so called "common people" will pay attention to something different too (long legs of a female driving instructor or to a mass on someone's desk). I'm interested in making documentary, in collecting pictures as someone else collects stamps, or postcards, or whatever.

PH39 -How do you decide which project to work on and what subject to pick ? PPP - Sometime ago I worked for a press agency. I went to photograph a strike in a factory and that is how I started Laborers project and I visited the following factories just for my own project. At the same time economic situation in few big companies (mine, car production factory, shipyard) became critical. Companies that hired few thousands people were about to collapse and workers were going on strikes. I went to all those places and collected a whole series.
Nowadays I photograph Inhabitants and Workers because these are people that I portrait everyday for all kinds of magazines.
Each time I try to take one picture just from myself: I put wide lens and stand in front of a person, and I press the button. After this one shot I take pictures for a magazine. This first one I also sent to a magazine but it's usually not chosen to be published. I usually hear from an editor that this one is no good and they need just "a head" (meaning a close portrait of a face).

PH39 What drew you to Rites of passage project and was it planned from the beginning this way?
PPP - I started working on Rites of passage photographing on communions and later weddings. Them I realized I would also need baptism ceremony and funerals to have whole life cycle. A photographer assists family in most of these situation (nowadays not so often at funerals as 20 years ago) These are very important moments in people lives. And everyone looks good, wear their best clothes, the best dishes are put on a table.

PH39 -How important is for for your work the content in relation to the aesthetic?
PPP -I don't care much about aesthetic. I put most important person in the centre of the frame. I have a flash with umbrella behind me, usually I take 10 pictures . Aesthetic on my pictures is the one I find in the place: size of the room, housing condition etc decide about final effect.

PH39-Rite of passage includes all main phase of a person catholic life, do you fell like intruding people`s life?
PPP - Rites of passage are not specific only for catholic life. But there are up to 90% of catholics in Poland.
I photograph people in situations which are very important for them, and they want to have a picture of those moments. I'm not a paparazzo, I'm not spying through a keyhole. Situation in between us is a very clear one: a photographer, a camera and people photographed. I never use hidden camera. I'm a guest on a ceremony, not an intruder.


PH39- I imagine it must be quite difficult to build a trust with certain topic, how did you develop this trust.
PPP -I usually have a contact to a family from someone I know, it "opens door" for me, I'm not an anonymous. I sometimes asked people I didn't know (in front of a church). I offered them pictures for free in exchange for their agreement for publication.

PH39- In this project you touch some personal aspect of people life, how do you define boundaries for what to show and what not to show in your work?
I show what people let me show. If they don't want something to be visible I don't photograph it. I use camera which needs a tripod and external flash, it's not a cell phone camera that you can photograph unnoticed. I have certain problems photographing funerals. There was a custom of photographing whole family with open coffin but today it is a rare thing. In the rural communities you can still find people sitting and praying around open coffin. In cities there are sanitary regulations forbidding dead body in a house. Ritual of last farewell become limited only to at a church or at a chapel.

PH39- Tell us about the inhabitant project, did you know the people or how did you meet them. Was the project based in Poland?
PPP - All my projects are based in Poland. Inhabitants are either my friends or people I meet when photographing for press.
With my pictures I describe world around me. This reality is very familiar but sometimes very surprising. I see a lot of work to be done for my projects in Poland. I want to photograph here, I don't look for extreme situations as war, hunger or disasters. Society in itself is most interesting for me: changing life styles and standard of living after transformation of 1989. I regret I didn't start my projects then.

Intervista a Lucia Nimcova

© Lucia Nimcova

Lucia Nimcova e` una giovane fotografa slovacca che ha compiuto una serie di progetti e documentari sociali nei paesi dell`est e centro Europa. Quest`anno partecipera`con una personale al Festival Internazionale Fotografia di Roma come vincitrice del primo concorso indetto dal festival. Lucia, che ora vive a new York ci ha concesso questa intervista via email.

PH39 - What attracted you to photography and how your interest developed?

Lucia Nimcova - I started when I was nine years old, so I did not think that much about it then? I just liked it, and it is more or less same now.

PH39- How would you define your work?

LN - "Expected comes unexpectedly."

PH39- Is there a project in your work that shifted your approach to a different research process?

LN - Every project I do is somehow different for me, so I need to find right way how to work on it. For example when I was working on project Rusyns [www.rusnaci.sittcomm.sk] I realized that music was more important for me than photography, so we did also music CD, which accompanied photo book.

PH39- How do you choose your subjects and could you be accused of exploiting them?

LN - All subjects I am working on are usually very personal to me, or they disturb me a lot, so I want to know why? Line between working on subject and exploiting it is very narrow … I try to be honest … but at the end it is up to people to judge.

PH39 - Would you say your work is feminist?

LN - I hope I will never belong to any box. Term feminism has different meanings in every country, cultural context and time.
I do not think I am competent to talk about feminism, but if somebody thinks, that my work is feminist, I do not have a problem with it.

PH39 - Is your work seen differently abroad or do you perceive a different reaction to it?

LN - It is an hard question? I do not know? I would say, that I am always surprised that sometimes people from different part of the world can understand my work better than me.

PH39 -You are now staying in NYC for a while and doing residency in Netherlands, can you see a different approach to contemporary photography between the two sides of the ocean?

LN -You can see different approach to contemporary photography in every country even if you stay in Europe. It depends on education, tradition and people, who are active and influential. I think it is often very healthy not to belong to any of those groups.

PH39 - Can you tell us about your next project or what are you working on right now?

LN - I am working on my education and fighting with ignorants around the world. It is my never-ending project.

http://www.luco.sk/