The fact that you don’t finish one thing makes you look for it in others.
A single photo is complete, the photo is that of a single moment that if you lose it never comes back, a work on a theme is never finished, until inside you have solved that problem there, you are looking for an answer to a question, to something that “bothers you”.
If I tell you “unfinished” what is the first thing that comes to your mind?
A life cycle, I don’t know why.
What color / shape is the unfinished?
A fog. At some point you don’t have complete vision, but you can glimpse something.
Is there something you have left undone in your life?
Almost everything, every choice you make, is carried out somewhere else and what you have left behind is another path that you have interrupted. Among my unfinished projects: a work on mourning and separation, to investigate the inability to really separate from each other, I photographed the graves of children and the objects that are left, there is a lot of sweetness and sadness. Another unfinished work, also sad but with hints of comedy, I did in Belgium where I photographed stuffed pets with their owners.
What is your relationship with unfinished things?
Conflict, in the sense that you know you have not finished a project and maybe you will never finish it. With me, it is very likely that it will not be finished, so it is a form of perennial nostalgia that sitcks with you throughout your life about what you could do, how you would have finished a certain project.
Is there something that you find of value precisely because it is unfinished?
Anything and everything, because being unfinished has room for much more; accomplished things are dead, they are finished. When they ask me to take a photo for some magazine, I take it, they publish it but I don’t look at it, because once something is published, it’s finished and if it’s finished I don’t care anymore, I put it away.
What is a fertilizer for you?
The journey you take and the encounters that await you along the way. There are unresolved issues that maybe come back in another project. The fact that you don’t finish one thing makes you look for it in others. My fertilizer is loneliness and a few good friends. And my daughter who is a kind of constant presence.
When is a work done for you?
A single photo is complete, the photo is that of a single moment that if you lose it never comes back, a work on a theme is never finished, until inside you have solved that problem there, you are looking for an answer to a question, to something that “bothers” you. When I take a photograph for a project, the photo is something that attracts me and usually it is something that “disturbs” me, that thing that you cannot hook, when you take the photo you are trying to hook something … and if you have finally made up with yourself, with that part of you, then the thing is over. I have projects that have been going on for years and I cannot continue for logistical reasons, but I know how many photographs there would be to take, until the vein is exhausted.
3 words you would match with unfinished
Paths, trails, and the likes.