I'm often asked why I do art, what do I want to say with my art photography, and what is the use of it? Once in a while I start to worry how to actually measure the impact from the art like we do with medicine or technology, where we can see the results and calculate it. Then I would finally be able to explain to my mother my art with real numbers. But my art is so far from metrics, and moreover, my photography is widely exposing the theme of escapism.
﻿我常被问起 为什么要从事艺术行业 我对于艺术摄影的观点 以及艺术摄影的用处 我偶尔会担心 如何实际地衡量艺术的影响力 正如我们衡量医疗以及科技一样
My theory is that all of us struggle sometimes to escape in order to analyze our reality, appreciate it or change. I don't work with daily life as it is, and I'm not a documentary photographer in the common sense. But I am a documentary photographer in a different sense. I document dreams. I work with daily life as it could be, as I imagine it. I am a daydreamer, but at the same time I love things that are authentic and deal with our innermost nature, which I would never want to escape from. I adore complicated personalities, and real life inspires me to create my images. Real life inspires our escape, and sometimes that escape is very needed.
那些结果显而易见 可以衡量 那么我就可以向我的母亲用实际的 数字来表达艺术 但是我的艺术难以度量 而且我的摄影多是 以逃避现实为主题
I believe heroes are not created easily, and I choose to work with individuals who are survivors and facing everyday routines that are not always full of color, people who are on their way to a better life, fighting against life circumstances.
我的观点是
Why do I choose people like that for my models? Because I've been in that position myself, when I had to learn how to survive in real life. I was a student living abroad in London. I was working at two places at the same time as a waitress. Obviously that wasn't my dream job, but I decided to play a game where I imagined that I am taking a role in a film, and in the film I am a waitress, and I need to act great. I used to dye my hair and brows to gingerette, I changed my hair to curly perm, I lost weight and made myself believe I am just a character acting in a film. That isn't forever, that is all just temporary. That helped me a lot. It motivated me to change my life and take a hard time as a game. Now, as an artist, I am creating different lives for my models in order to give them the experience of being someone else in reality. Through the photographic process, all of my models become like silent movie actors. They are captured at the moment when they believe in being someone else entirely.
我们所有人有时会努力逃避 为了更好地分析现实 欣赏它或是改变它
In order to create a new reality in its entirety, I physically create every single thing in my work, sometimes from outfits to the stage. Because I work with analogues, and I don't make any digital manipulations to my photographs, I need everything to take place in reality, in spite of the fact that nowadays, digitally, you can create pretty much everything. I don't like this path. Even if that reaches perfection, I see the beauty in authenticity of making, and that's impossible without flaws. A digitally manipulated photograph is not true for me. It doesn't capture anything real. It's not experienced, not motivating. It's like, instead of going traveling, you look at someone else's travel photographs.
我不描绘日常生活本来的样子
What I find so exciting is the ability to make people's dreams of being someone else a reality. That's like a drug which pushes me to keep working, even without metrics.
我不是通常意义上的
One of my models had always dreamed of being seen as a warrior, but she wasn't able to do sports because of her health problems. Half a year ago, she passed away from heart disease at the age of 22. But two days before her death, the images we spent months working on together of her as a warrior she dreamed of becoming were published at a large exhibition in Milan by Vogue Magazine. All her life was about overcoming. Before she died, she had known that thousands of people saw her image from the land of escapism and believed in her as a brave and fearless warrior.
纪实摄影师 但从另一种意义上来说我确实是 一个纪实摄影师 我记录梦想
For my work, I invite people to play a game like we all used to as children when we pretend to be someone else and that process made us really happy. To my mind it is important for grown-ups. We need these transformations to enact this in the name of art. It gives us the very real feeling of being important and powerful in order to influence our reality. I know this from my own personal experience. I have had so many versions of myself through my self-portraits that I've been many different characters.
我描绘日常生活的无尽可能 如我所想 我喜欢做白日梦 但同时我也喜欢真实的事物
Being someone else in the land of escapism doesn't exactly give us numbers that we can gauge, but it's like a real lost form of magic which exists but can't be measured. There is a unique power in art to transform and lift our limits. Art creates what I call a conjured life, which helps our existence and pushes, motivates and inspires us to dwell and express ourselves without metrics or calculations.
并和我们内心最深处的天性交流
Thank you.
我永远不想逃避内心最深处的想法 我欣赏复杂的性格 现实生活会启发我创造作品 现实生活鼓励我们去逃避 有时那些逃避很重要
(Applause)
我认为英雄的养成绝非易事 我选择和个人合作