El Mundo, Interview with Jacob Aue Sobol by Luis Alberto Alvarez These are not the usual pictures of somebody who travel to Tokyo, there are loneliness, dirtiness, rootlessness, why this heartrending approach? I moved to Tokyo because my girlfriend got a job there. She worked from early morning to late night, so I had plenty of time to explore the city in which she had grown up. Initially, I felt invisible. Every day I would walk the streets without anyone making eye-contact with me. Everyone seemed to be heading somewhere – it was if they had no need of communication. There were crowds of people, but as I was not part of the daily routine, my isolation becomes obvious. My feeling of loneliness was overwhelming, and it was something I had to find a way to change. It made me search for people I could relate to. Instead of photographing the tall buildings and the eternal swarm of people – the usually images we know from Tokyo – I went into the alleys and the parks to search for the individual human presence. By using a small pocket camera I felt I could work more by instinct, give a lower priority to my role as a photographer and be more irrational in my approach. I wanted to meet people on a one-to-one basis instead of just seeing them as part of an unidentified group. Of course I do not travel to the other side of the planet to tell a story we already know. I take pictures to tell about our inner-lives and my personal meeting with a foreign place. The images reflect who I am and how I feel. I have a strong interest in learning about human conditions, a desire to know more. At the same time loneliness and rootlessness is something most people have to deal with in their lives, especially in Japan where the generation who has grown up in postwar Japan is characterized by its lack of connection to traditional Japanese culture and values. They live in a society with economical wealth, but at the same time a society where it can be difficult to find a meaning, when the only possibility in your adult life is to work 14 hours per day in an office. I want my photography to be a part of life itself. With my consistent focus on the people, the physical and emotional, my aim has been to create personal images from my life in Tokyo, which - in spite of photography's seemingly concrete form - show layers in people which are not immediately visible, but nonetheless shape who we are and give meaning to our lives. You use a kind of film with lot of grain, why do you use it and why don't you use a digital camera? Every time I start a new project, I use colour film because I think it is time to renew myself, but I always end up returning to black and white. My colour pictures can be beautiful, ugly and interesting, perhaps, but I can't feel them. I can't find myself, and they become completely meaningless to me. They are like decorations. A few times I tried using digital as well, but I felt disturbed by the fact that I always wanted to check the screen, and so did the people I photographed. With my small film camera, I feel I am able to be more present. To show a greater interest in the person I am meeting rather than the image. I try to work in the most simple way possible, to downgrade the technique and all the things that are disturbing to these encounters. Using the same cameras in Greenland, Guatemala and now Tokyo has also given my images a certain look that I Identify with. Of course this also has to do with the way I develop and print the images. You show taboo subjects in the japanesse society like the sex or the naked body. Was it difficult to introduce in those so private fields?
I am not sure I look at these subjects as being taboos in Japanese society. On one hand, yes, because people never talk about them in the open, on the other hand, no, because the city exudes sex. Especially Shinjuku with its pulsing night life, sex-clubs and host-bars. As in most other societies, the sexuality seems to create a significant energy and contributes to the rhythm of the city. Also, in Tokyo, sex seems to be less connected with sin and shame as in many Western-Christian societies. I often think it is my search for intensity and the vulnerable human being that leads to the more erotic pictures. Most of the people I photograph naked are people I have got to know better, and there has been a mutual trust, but I never found it difficult to reach that point. On the other hand I often experience that it is my own shyness or modesty that limits my possibilities of doing more erotic or sexual pictures. Why are the 'human landscapes' important for you? When I was living in Greenland I was - to a large extent - unconscious of the work I was creating. I photographed Sabine menstruating in the shower, because I was in love with her, and it was a part of our daily life – it seemed as natural as eating raw seal liver or emptying the shit bucket. In my Tokyo work, my desire to unfold a private universe and involve the viewer in other peoples' inner lives has been a continuous ambition. My interest in the intimate, the fragile and the exposed human being is obvious, but is more a simple wish to photograph life as it is lived and the body as it is perceived by my senses. You have made series about Greenland people and about a Guatemala family. Do you think your work is, somehow, anthropological? When I first went to the settlement Tiniteqilaaq on the East Coast of Greenland in 1999 it was with a grant from the Danish Ministry of Culture. My idea was to catch this strange connection that exists in Greenland between the original way of living and a more modern society. Had the clash between cultures resulted in conflict or interdependence? I guess at that time I had some anthropological approach, but after falling in love with the local girl Sabine everything changed. Now it was all about making a living with Sabine and her family. Learning to communicate, hunt, repair the nets or clean the fur - everyday life. People stopped asking me why I was living in Tiniteqilaaq. Instead they asked where I had gone hunting that day and what I had caught. In Sabine's family no one cared if I came home with two exposed films, but if I had caught trout or shot a seal everybody was happy. It became a status symbol for me to come home with the prey like the rest of the men in the settlement. When I picked up the camera again 6 months later, I was no longer photographing to be daring. I did no longer wait for the decisive moment to appear or an extreme situation to dramatize my story. I photographed to record some of the moments and emotions I shared with Sabine and that I wanted to remember and keep with me. In this way the link between my personal life and the images I create started. Rather than being anthropological, my images represent a simple wish to communicate with the surrounding world and the people I meet. It is necessary to make a 'field work' as a photographer to capture the society essence? The more time you spend in a place, the more complex it gets, and the more time you need to try to understand what it is you are searching for. When I first came to Greenland I was met with a mixture of prejudices, hospitality and curiosity - as you would expect any society to welcome a stranger. But soon I found out that the people, who were
eager to get in contact with me, were the outcast or the people in need. It was not the well-functioning Inuit-family. Why would they be interested in me? And I realized, that if I did not get to know the mainstay of the population, my story would become the clichĂŠ of a beautiful Greenland destroyed by alcohol and western life style. Of course, reality is not as simple as that. Many of the Inuits seem to live with a constructive combination of traditions and modern means such as the riffle and the vhf-radio. After looking at the material from my first trip, I felt that my portrait of the village was distorted, and I was determined to return and tell a more complex story. I am not that different from many other photographers; to begin with you photograph all the things that are strange and make you feel different, however, soon you start looking for connections. Time is crucial to me. You can't be in a hurry if you want to show a deep interest in a foreign culture and its people. Which are the most important differences between the japanese and the western cultures? In Denmark it seems like we have a much greater need to put ourselves in focus. We are much more independent, we think more about ourselves, and how to survive as individuals. In Japan your identity seems to be linked much closer to the group you are a part of. The older generation in the Japan was raised to pull together, and the group-mentality has proven successful in the past. However, as the wealth has permeated into the society, people have lost a common aim. Moreover, with the economic crisis in the 90s during which individuals were laid off in big numbers and people were left to fend for themselves, group-mentality became a useless tool for many. Japanese who have grown-up during the economic crisis are often critical about any group mentality, which devotes them to a country, an organization or a person. But from an outsider's perspective, Tokyo still appears as a society/city with strict norms where liberating oneself from a group can seem impossible. Also in Japan there seems to be a greater sense of mutual understanding. In Denmark we say things out loud to make sure everyone understands our points whether these are relevant or not, where as in Japan many words remain unspoken. What is the meaning for a young person like you to be nominated as a Magnum Photos member? The world is changing, and so is the way we tell about it. Though it is true that Magnum mostly consist of photographers which are significantly older than me, there has in the last few decades been an influx of younger photographers who have brought more diversity to the group. I enjoy being a part of this new breed, which gathers inspiration from a strong tradition, and uses this to develop photography further and to create its own vision. The Magnum-brand is known around the world and has helped me promote and introduce my work to an audience that otherwise would have been difficult to reach. With all the energetic, stubborn and insisting photographers in Magnum, I have found a place where people are as ambitious as myself. A place where photography and the impact it has on our lives is taken seriously. You came from Thailand few days ago. Have you made a new series? What have you found over there? The first time I went to Bangkok in December 2007 was with my twin-brother, who works as a journalist. In a month time, we did five stories together on different topics from cock fight to prostitution. After my return I had the same feeling about my images that I usually get, when I have just
started to work in a new country: I realize that I have only scratched the surface. I have, to some extent, told the cliche - the things we already know. I know the society has far more lawyers and meanings to it than my photographs are communicating, and I feel determined to go back to tell a more complex study and not to simplify the lives of the people. It is more or less a coincidence that I started photographing in Bangkok, but once I had been there, once I have started to involve myself in the city and the people who live there, I keep wanting to return to the same streets, as if I believe that one day I will understand these places and the people who come there. In Bangkok I was struck by the huge gap between the rich and the poor, and this has had a great effect on my work even though my images still also reflect my own emotional life and my personal meeting with Bangkok. What can to contribute the work of a photographer like you in a world overloaded of images? Today many photographs contain specific information or tell a story that the photographer/messenger finds important. To me it is crucial that my images are not complete. That something is untold, that the image leaves something for the viewer to imagine, feel or interpret, that the image asks questions rather than giving answers. In this way the picture can also be used as a mirror, as a reflection of the viewers state of mind. At the start of my stay in Greenland, I worked in a more rational way and tried to think of images that included the information needed for a story about life in the settlement. But falling in love with Sabine changed that. She was irrational. She taught me how to see and how to go to the limit. After a long period of not photographing in Greenland, I picked up the camera again when Sabine was dancing around the house revealing her torn, star-patterned panties. I suddenly felt like photographing again because it was a moment I wanted to remember and treasure. After this, I continued using my pocket camera, because I could carry it around without feeling that my main purpose was to take photos. I did not feel like a photographer but more like someone who wished to keep a diary. I didn't look through the camera as Sabine took a bath – I joined Sabine with the camera. This was when the pictures were evolving from showing to being. It was as if I was no longer a stranger documenting the life of the Inuits but rather the documentary evolved into an autobiography about my life with Sabine. Later, working in Tokyo, Copenhagen and Bangkok, I've tried to keep the aesthetics of the snapshot and the irrational way of working, simply because I feel the link between our inner lives and the images I create become stronger in this way.