Interview

A conversation between Anne Lass and Katja Melzer

Can you still remember where you went on your first trip and the photos you took there?

I took my first ambitious travel photos when I was 15 years old on a package holiday in Crete. My grandmother had invited all the women in the family and this gave rise to some very interesting social documentary photos—although they should never be published.

You have traveled widely, and from early 2006 to mid-2007 you lived in Germany and the US. What does the idea of “home” or “homeland” mean to you?

In my life I have traveled back and forth a lot; I lived for extended periods of time in the US, Denmark, England, and Hungary. Traveling and discovering new places and different cultures has always really fascinated me. When the living conditions are right and I can identify with the new place and the people I meet there, I quickly start to feel at home there. And that can give rise to what you might call a sense of home. But I associate the concept of a “homeland” with the place where I grew up, where I spent my childhood and teenage years. And that, for me, is Northern Germany.

You moved to Berlin some time ago. What ideas or expectations do you have about this city?

I have been living in Berlin since fall of 2007. I liked the Ruhr area where I attended college, but I wouldn’t have considered it as a “home” in a long-term sense. Berlin has a very special atmosphere. It’s not always very friendly, but always exciting. To me, the wastelands and empty spaces shaped by the city’s history are something unique, and because of them I have a special regard for the city. I find intersections with other places that interest me—not just in the city center but also outside the city—and I go to those places to take pictures. There is also a good artistic exchange here and productive working relationships with other artists. But whether I will stay here permanently is an open question.

The decision to pursue an artistic career is often a difficult one. When did it become clear to you that you wanted to become a photographer? Was there something specific that triggered this decision?

I was already taking pictures and developing them in the darkroom during secondary school. I actually really enjoy working in the darkroom, but unfortunately that hardly happens at all anymore. When I was 20, I attended a Danish art school, the Krabbesholm Højskole, where I explored photography in greater depth and experimented around a lot. My teachers there, Ellen Auken and Niels Henriksen, strongly encouraged me to pursue photography further.

Was your development as a photographer influenced by specific role models? Are there photographers who you particularly admire?

I like Joel Sternfeld’s photos, some of which I find very witty. Humor is an element that can be used to capture the attention of a lot of people right at the outset. I try to work with that in my pictures as well. I also find the irritating quality of the essentially haphazard arrangements in Jeff Wall’s work very stimulating. But I also like the photos of many of my former classmates from Essen. In these, it is often not so much about working in rigorous series, but about exploring the single image. That, to me, is very liberating.

I have actually noticed some parallels between your work and Jeff Wall’s, although the two approaches are completely antithetical. What photographic method do you use?

I draw from the elements of documentary photography since I don’t actually arrange the scenes. But because the pictures don’t have any claim to reality for me anyway, I don’t have any problem with modifying and reworking the images in order to clarify what I am trying to convey. For me, color is integral when I want to say something about a particular contemporary phenomenon. But I also can’t rule out that I might someday have the desire to work in black and white, too.

Some photographers first conceive the idea for a reportage or photo series based on a specific concept, and then set about realizing it. How would you describe your working method—what is your process as a photographer?

Some of the works come about in a geographically restricted space, a place that I want to tell something about—for example in the works “Milwaukee Avenue” or “Wohnheim” (Residential Home). Within those places, however, there is often a lot that is left open. First I photograph everything that interests me, and only afterwards do I make a selection. Then I create the final images, and put them into a particular form.
With the project “Wandeln” (Strolling) there is no specific place, it is more about the individual images and their connection to each other. I like to take the train, for example, and just get off in whatever place appeals to me. I tend to search more for a specific atmosphere than for specific situations. Situations just happen on their own, and the atmosphere becomes a kind of stage. It was very easy to find this kind of atmosphere in Detroit, for example. I thought the diverse contrasts, junctures, and tensions there were extremely interesting. And also, if you keep your eyes open, you find people everywhere that just often do very bizarre things, which I want to capture.

In our talk you mentioned that you often come home from your forays without having taken a single good photograph. What constitutes a “good photograph” for you?

Sometimes you walk around all day and simply don’t see anything interesting, and that is just a bad “working day,” just like people sometimes have at the office. It gets frustrating when I realize this at the moment I’m taking the picture, but by then it’s too late because the situation has already changed. I am very interested in pictures that look staged when they actually aren’t. Like with the woman in the bikini on the cliff. Situations like that are impossible to recreate.

Previously you said that you first take the pictures, then make a selection, then “put them into a particular form.” No doubt you mean arranging your photographs for presentation in book form. What does this form of presentation mean for you?

I like working in book form. When you turn the pages of a book, the form, color, and the atmosphere allow you to create connections. There is a book for every project, and this is just as important as the images in the exhibitions. Many of the pictures appeared in exhibitions much later, and at the beginning only existed in book form. I like the challenge of creating a sequence: it’s like a puzzle that all fits together at the end. It’s similar with an exhibition, but the book has something more intimate about it because it’s something you hold in your hands. The haptic aspect of the book is also important to me—in contrast to the framed photograph on the wall or the image on a computer monitor. The book becomes a visual promenade through the different situations. Here, the “path” I create is more fixed than it is in an exhibition, where you can move around more freely.

Your series “Geography of Nowhere,” also published in book form, can certainly be described as critical of the US. Did you have the feeling that your European background influenced your view of America?

Yes, I think one sees a lot of things differently through the eyes of a foreigner. You don’t even notice a lot of things when you grow up in that environment. On the other hand, I was in the US so often over a period of five years that at some point none of it was new to me anymore—it didn’t seem as spectacular as it did in the beginning.
So many things are just different than here: for example, the sizes and proportions of things. You feel small as a person; the architecture is usually almost completely interchangeable, and the buildings are designed for temporary use. There are significantly wider contrasts between rich and poor, and stark divisions between people of different nationalities and skin colors. I felt that the general atmosphere there was much more “loaded” than it is with us here, which can certainly also have its positive aspects as well.

How were these photos received by the American audience?

Some of them found the book to be very depressing and sad, but others thought parts of it were funny. It’s really up to the individual how you judge the pictures; the photographs reflect my own personal point of view. I wouldn’t claim that things are this or that particular way; I just show what I have found.

Your photographs are very diverse in their subject matter. Can you imagine a situation in the public space that you would not photograph?

I wouldn’t enjoy taking pictures of situations that are too tragic. Accidents or things like that. Once I photographed a huge house fire, but only because I knew that nobody was inside and that nobody had been hurt. Otherwise I wouldn’t have done it. I also don’t like to photograph someone when I feel like the person doesn’t want me to; I want to respect that.

In your current series “In unserer Zeit” (In Our Time), the photographs show strange constellations of people and environments. What is striking you about these situations? The people, who we might expect to move differently in that space, or just the encounter between people and city?

More the latter, because cities are often strange. They’re strange because they are made by people but are often hostile to human life. To me, the people in cities often seem much more lost than in other landscapes.

In relation to the current economic and political conflicts, your photos seem like the “calm before the storm.” What is your personal impression of our time?

I think that on the political level, the entire last decade left a bad feeling behind; in many countries a distrustful, xenophobic, and pessimistic atmosphere prevails. This has undoubtedly influenced me and my pictures, whether consciously or unconsciously. The people seem unable to really grasp the current crisis; they are extremely passive and also disoriented. For the most part, this is also how the people in my pictures act, which definitely makes it easy to interpret them in relation to the present context.

You leave the viewer a great deal of freedom in interpreting your photos. How do you gauge the impact and thus the influence of your photographs? Do you believe in the notion of the “engaged artist” who wants to change things with his work?

It would, of course, be nice if people would start separating their garbage when they see my sad nature photos. But I don’t believe that will happen, and it’s also not my objective.
I think it’s difficult to shake things up by hanging pictures in a gallery, where most of the viewers have the same views as you do yourself. If I really want to get involved politically, I have to do it in a different way. But I am happy when I can evoke a particular feeling in the viewer that stays with him or her for a while. Like a dream that gives you a feeling you remember for years. That can have an influence, too, on a more subtle level. Basically, I want to study, observe, and photograph just what I find around me at a particular point in time, simply expose and preserve a possible representation of our current condition.

When you work on a project like “In unserer Zeit” (In Our Time)—could that be called your life’s task or your life’s work? After all, there is no end in sight for a project of this kind.

At least at the moment I want to keep working on it and keep gathering more pictures. Right now I am also very interested in studying what happens when the new pictures intermingle with the old ones. Especially because at this point many of the new pictures being added are from the Berlin area.

Do other forms of artistic expression besides photography play a role for you, either in your work or in your life?

For a while I was very interested in film. I made a few small films, among them a documentary about the photographer Lee Balterman, whom I had met by chance: a real, classic “street photographer” who has been taking photos on the streets of Chicago every day for his entire life (he is now 91 years old). That was very interesting. It was also just instructive to grapple with moving images, to see what happens when there’s sound and when the essential is not reduced to a single moment.

Up to now, your series have revolved mainly around urban spaces and the tense relationships between people and this environment. Are you interested in other themes as well?

I started with a project about more rural living environments in order to see whether the situations that I find in the city might not also be found in very small towns as well. And what a concept like “contemporaneity” means there. Because ultimately, my objective is to continuously collect new and distinct images that say something about our time.