How did you become a photographer? Would you define yourself as a one?
I have always loved to observe and imagine things. When I was 7 years old, I received a disposable camera. I used to take pictures of my friends during school break or of my parents at home. One summer’s day, When I was 13 years old and very bored, I came across a small digital camera that I had been given. I started to photograph flowers, cats and then my friends and me. It was revelation. Three years later I started organising my own photo shoots, and that’s where my passion for photography really took hold. I did the makeup, clothes and directed some girls who inspired me. I usually define myself as a photographer, but since I am also artistic director, photographer and director, I think the term “visual artist” is more appropriate. Pictures are a powerful medium and it is through them that I express myself.
What drives you as a photographer?
I hate injustice, particularly against women, and did so even before understanding the word feminism and the political consequences of these inequalities.
In our very visual society, photos have a lot of influence. They have an impact on us that is both positive and negative.
It is important for me to represent women and minorities. I resort to a number of poetic “tricks” – humour, acting, nonsense, surrealism, dreams – to raise the questions that I ask myself, to highlight certain issues and to deconstruct taboos and stereotypes that get in the way of us expressing who we really are. In my view, intimacy and politics are linked, and images can show how a personal experience can also be a shared one. Images can give way to concrete or imagined realities, they are an inventive torchlight that is shone on a subject.
Do you think there is such a thing as a ‘woman’s gaze’ in photography? Is this something you can relate to?
Yes. At birth, we are assigned a gender based on what we have between our legs. From the moment I was born, I was addressed to as a girl and educated as a girl.
Gender is mostly a social construction with behaviour stereotypes and character traits. I think there is such a thing as a “woman’s eye”, because the way we look at things reflects our experience – that is, what it means to be a woman and to be perceived as one. These experiences we have as women are what we want to show through our “woman’s eyes”. Since art, among other things, has been mostly created by men for men, we, as women, have internalised these representations. It is therefore essential to make new representations more visible and to widen the scope of possibilities. We must never forget that a point of view is always shaped within a certain context and the same applies to a work of art and an artist.
Has being a woman influenced your work as an artist in any way?
Being a woman is definitely the most important theme in my work. Of course, an artist is always influenced by her experience and background. Being a woman is part of my experience and makes me live my life in a certain way. This is obviously reflected in what I show in my photographs. There have always been women artists, but they have always been less visible than men. So sometimes we have to fight against traditional stereotypes associated with women: what they can’t do, what they aspire to and their fight for independence among other things.
Do you live off your art?
I became a photographer very early on and had a good job, so I’ve been lucky enough to live off my trade for quite a while now. I know that’s not the case for many others. I feel very privileged to have been able to do so, and hope I’ll be able to continue this way, despite the current health crisis.
Which authors have inspired you? Are there any women photographers among them?
Magritte, Sophie Calle, Laia Abril, Harley Weir, Rania Matar, Agnès Varda, Frida Khalo, Nadine Ijewere and Prue Stent & Honey Long.
