How did you begin photography and why did you choose this means of expression rather than any other?I
had my first contact with photography very young, and in a sad moment
of my life, at my grandmother’s funeral. Her brother / my uncle who
lives in Paris and is a researcher in physics and chemistry left a
camera in our home… and I documented the funeral. I was very young, and
this was the only way to say something. In those days, I was very shy.
Both
photographs are excerpts from a larger body of work about Romania, your
native country. You were 6 when Ceausescu died in 1989. Is this body of
work a way for you to understand your country and its past, to feel
closer to it? Living in a post-communist country like Romania is
not a sad or negative reality for me. It’s a wonderful thing to witness
so many transformations for the better, but what is truly wonderful is
to be one of those creating the change our society needs. In order to
fulfil our potential as a country, we need knowledge, commitment and
involvement.
As a photographer, how did you decide to approach these issues? Before
the 20th anniversary of the Romanian revolution, I started this work
for a book first about my country 20 years after the revolution, and I
tried to show a portrait of the country – a land of winter, Orthodox
faith, class divide and industrial decay.
For most Romanians, the
economic promise of the revolution has proven hollow. Industrial work,
where it continues at all, uses communist-era technology. Many factories
have been abandoned. There is hardly any middle class, leaving masses
of poor people in the countryside.
My rural subjects are often
faceless: silhouetted against a blanched snowscape, obscured by a train
window or dwarfed by eastern orthodox icons. My story of Romania is told
as much through what is absent – young men, modern industry, summer,
colour – as through what is there.
Deep in Romania, it's cold, it’s
winter. People don’t have food on the table, and the crisis is a really
big thing. I went outside Bucharest many times, and the feeling is
really deep and black, but with beautiful memories. In these 2
particular pictures, you see women more because men who are still around
the house are working while women are going to church. But in remote
rural areas of Romania, a lot of young men aren’t there anymore – they
are somewhere in Spain, Italy, France working… at least, when I shot
this story, a lot of men had left the country to find work.
What direction is your work taking these days? Are you still covering zones of conflict?I
am against conflicts, but sometimes I have to go. I believe photography
is a voice: when we go there, we try to make photography a voice for
those in pain, to show what’s going on there on the ground, to bear
witness. In the recent period, I covered the Arab Spring, but in a
slightly different way than what I did with conflicts until now, because
I chose to be more independent on this subject . I am planning to
return to Syria, but as you very well know, it’s not easy. I have few
projects which will take me some time to finish; the one I really have
to finish very soon is Pakistan.
Limited edition, numbered and signed.