Photography as Tool for Critical Thinking
Conversation between Laura Bivolaru and Lucian Bran
Laura Bivolaru: From documentary to conceptual work, you have consistently worked with landscapes. How does the Romanian audience relate to this genre of photography? Do you think there is a state consciousness, both as a geographical space and as a nation, constructed through landscape? Can we compare it, for example, to Carleton E. Watkins’, Ansel Adams’, or Stephen Shore’s America?
Lucian Bran: I don’t think the Romanian public consumes art in general, and even less so fine art photography. This can be seen in museums, which only have visitors on The Night of Museums. Therefore, I believe people only relate to calendar photos or online images, which usually depict picturesque landscapes. Often, the locations belong to national parks, the photographs are saturated, and everything appears beautiful and idyllic. ‘The Garden of the Mother of God’ is a phrase that describes the general perception of the Romanian landscape. Everything is clean, beautiful, and special. But in reality, nature here is hardly respected, and you can see this every time you pay it a visit. Traditions are stronger than a certain respect for nature, and the relationship with nature is, in fact, a mystical one.
In America, there is a longer history of representing the natural environment. Besides Ansel Adams’ grand landscapes, there is Stephen Shore’s direct approach, that investigates the typical American town. A country benefitting from a relatively new culture and with a recent history, I think the American culture has been quicker to promote aspects that build or confirm what they understand as the American identity.
In your projects, there is a constant friction between reality and simulacrum, concepts discussed and transformed by the photographic medium throughout its history. As a viewer, on an axis between the two, where do you find yourself in photography? Is the photograph more a piece of reality or an imitation of it?
Starting from the premise that each individual possesses their own truth, through this blend of fiction and reality I attempt to illustrate multiple interpretations of an event or idea.
Photography is a tool; it is used differently depending on the context. The artist represents or constructs a visual code, mass-media broadcasts news, and a tourist collects memories from vacations. Each person can find themselves in any of these roles, sometimes even at the same time. This summer, I was on vacation in Greece, where I photographed the sea, the mountains, and the food. Some of these photos might become part of an artistic project.
Photography holds a certain power over us; anyone who doubts this would change their mind if they had to look at a dictator’s or a former life partner’s portrait every day. What is the power of the landscape? Over time, how has the landscape as artistic practice changed you?
I grew up in Brașov, surrounded by nature, with a painting by Ivan Shishkin (obviously a copy) in the living room, which often caught my eye. Regardless of the environment, a landscape initially offers only primary emotions. Most people stop there. Those who are curious can analyse the colours and the composition, and then attempt a geographic contextualisation.
From my earliest projects I understood that man is subservient to nature. And with Borrowed Territories I realised that nature is timeless. Landscape is a concept, and nature has existed long before us and will exist long after. This idea always preoccupies me when I work on a project – how can I relate to nature in a way that allows its representation in a contemporary context, whether it’s political, historical, or economic, and what is the interaction between these two poles: humans and nature?
The research and conceptualisation stage of a project is the most satisfying for me personally; then I often feel disappointment and I even become negligent when it comes to actually making the images, while the end, when the audience meets the work, always introduces the anxiety of new questions and ideas. Which part of your practice do you find most challenging, and how do you approach it?
Personally, I believe that representing an idea is the most challenging part. In recent years, I have started working with other media. In From Centuries Ago to Eons to Come, I couldn’t represent the amount of data using only photography. The concept of reverse archaeology required some ancient-looking vessels made from contemporary materials, reintegrated into a process of discovery on a reverse temporal axis. Photography couldn’t help me with that. I can’t see how it would have worked without creating an extensive and tedious display of archive images that I would have had to somehow associate with the future. At the same time, the model of the Ada Kaleh Island had to be made of sugar cubes; it would have been too insignificant for it to be photographed and exhibited as a print. Sugar cubes are closely related to Turkish coffee and tea, and sugar as an ingredient has strong economic connotations and is soluble.
I like to concentrate multiple pieces of information into a single work, and this is a challenge for me.
For Borrowed Territories, you photographed some of the locations and filming sets of the American mini-series “Hatfields & McCoys” (2012), which was filmed in Romania due to the similarity of the landscape to the West Virginia-Kentucky region. Additionally, you collected plants from these places and scanned them against RGB and CMYK backgrounds. Here the landscape appears as a cultural construct, a mirror of the viewer’s projections rather than a location on a map. What are the responsibilities of an artist in the process of representing nature?
I believe that authenticity is the most important feature of an artist. For this, they must be honest, first and foremost, with themselves.
For a work to be ‘good’, it must meet at least one standard: it must be technically well-produced. Every artist who has been through art school should know this. Then it depends on each individual’s cultural and informational background. And on the purpose of the work too. Whether it’s abstract, symbolic, or documentary, each requires different methods. The artist is responsible for mastering their chosen method and for being aware of all the others, too.
Although more subtle, I can perceive in your works an interest in the relationship between space and time. In Borrowed Territories there is tension between historical and contemporary representation, as well as between the temporal dimension of cinematography and the stillness of photography. In From Centuries Ago to Eons to Come you address the geological time of the formation and disappearance of islands, and in Săgeată, Floare, Foc we can make out the idea of cosmic temporality in relation to the human one. Are you actively trying to manifest the idea of duration in your photographic series? How important is it to your practice?
In all my projects I attempt to position the individual in relation to various temporal scales. I believe I do this because I have noticed that people are obsessed with results, especially in at the moment. They rarely appreciate the journey; they need finality. But their entire existence is a sequence of events. Recognizing this journey gives identity to an individual, an ethnicity, a race.
In the installation of the project From Centuries Ago to Eons to Come at the ElectroPutere Gallery, you included objects alongside images. Can photography put you in a deadlock that you can escape through other media? What are the limits of photography that you have encountered in your practice?
I started intervening in photography with Borrowed Territories. It was then that I also made a video, which I tried to integrate into a small installation at the Galeria Posibilă. At the same gallery, for my first solo show, where I exhibited the Back to Wellhead series, I integrated interviews and even brought water from some of the springs I had photographed to the opening. I like to experiment and I am interested in producing objects or installations that accompany photography. I think ideas should not be confined to a single artistic medium or photographic style. “Less is more,” “more is less”… purisms of this kind seem ridiculous to me, especially in the artistic field.
Photography dominates every project or exhibition that I do, but if I need to step out of photography to express an idea, I do it with great interest.
For you, is photography a pretext or an end in itself?
It is a tool for critical thinking. It is subordinate to and serves the idea, and I use it beyond the limitations it imposes
– interview developed by Laura Bivolaru
