Truth, Identity, and Authenticity with Bieke Depoorter
In the self-published photography book Agata, Bieke Depoorter delves into the complex relationship between photographer and subject through a collaborative working dynamic with her book’s subject, Agata Kay.
Front cover of the book: Agata.
Congratulations on the huge success of Agata! You’re on the MoMA’s 10 Favourite Photobooks of 2021, and Shortlisted for awards from Kraszna-Krausz, Aperture and the The Rencontres d’Arles Photo Text Book Award. How does it feel to be recognised in this way?
It’s very nice! But it’s also… I don’t know how I feel about it. For me, especially in the Agata project and many of my latest works, the audience is a very important part. With Agata, our work changed the moment we showed it in an exhibition for the first time. When people looked at us and at the work, at our collaboration – the pictures we made totally changed, because we were both aware of the audience, aware that someone was looking at us. The book isn’t the end product, it’s a part of the project. It’s very nice that we’re getting good responses from the audience, and it keeps on coming. We made a second edition, printed it, and we added a little booklet – it’s a transcription from a talk Agata gave, where she’s sharing her thoughts about our collaboration. It’s nice to have a conversation with the audience as well, that is part of the work.
I love the openness that you have with your audience, especially through including text as well as photography within the book. What first drew you to photography, and has text always been important to you?
Actually, no! I also didn’t grow up with photography. I started to study it when I was 18, but I’d never been to a [gallery] before that. My parents aren’t into the art world, and I didn’t grow up in that kind of environment. So I think for everyone it was a surprise that I finally decided to study photography, and for me too. I like to really follow my feelings – I was drawn to images to communicate more without words. My first books had no captions, I wanted to just have the image speak for itself. I made a book in Russia and then in the United States, and then it totally changed when I was doing a project in Egypt. I mean, I was asking people if I could spend the night in their homes during the revolution, which was difficult. And after seven years of working there, I wanted to make a book, and I realised that I was an outsider – the culture there is so complex, alongside the revolution and everything, and I couldn’t stand the idea that people from the Western world would look at my images and think, ‘Okay, this is Egypt, and this is how Egypt is now’. And that’s actually the first time when I thought text is important in a book. I cancelled the publication of the book, because I needed to add the voice of the people there. So I went back to Egypt then with a demo of the book and asked other Egyptians to look at it, and to write in Arabic on the images what they thought of the photographs. And in this way, people started having conversations with each other on top of those images. If you read the text, you see the photographs in a totally different way, because people don’t like the images, and they say, “Egypt is not like this”, or “I don’t like photography” – or they’re very positive! It shows the complexity of the photograph, and it also questions photography. For me, that book was a crucial change in how I use photography and text. I now often use text, like in Agata. It’s the same in that book: if you just see the photographs, you have a different idea of what the project is. Because Agata writes about her experience, and also in my writing I question my image choice and question what ‘the real truth’. Is it what I show, or is there another truth, or are there different possible truths? And with text, I think you can do a lot – you can reflect on this, and you can give the images another layer.
Note from Agata Kay to Bieke Depoorter.
I’m interested in the travel involved in your work – from Egypt, to Russia, to the US. How does place and space factor into how we represent ourselves, and how much does our environment dictate our performances of self? Are we only ever presenting or performing to our audience, or our environment?
I think there’s the factor of the audience. If we are aware that someone is looking at us, that is changing how we act. But then at the same time you can also perform for yourself – maybe you want to be someone else, or you want to see yourself in a different way than you are. So I think it’s complex to know what the ‘real you’ is. In Agata, we really explored this and I really thought about this a lot. Maybe there’s not one identity, you know? Maybe there’s different parts, and maybe it’s not necessary to have one [way] of showing, “this is who I am”. It’s possible to change, or to play different roles, or different people. I also think an important part is that as photographers, we need to realise that once we’re in a room, or once we’re photographing someone, we’re changing what’s happening. A lot of photographers want to be invisible, or we say we are flies on the wall, but I don’t believe in this kind of thinking. Because I really think that even if we pretend to be invisible, we are visible, and the scene would not happen if we were not there. Or it wouldn’t happen in the same way. That’s an important part of my work – to not try to be invisible, because I think it’s a lie. I think people perform because they know you are there, but that’s fine too. It’s totally fine to openly talk about it, but I feel like in photography we want to hide this fact, that we are changing the scene – even when it’s documentary and we’re not directing, we’re not saying where people should stand – we’re still directing by our presence. It’s weird that we don’t dare to talk about it. I remember in Agata, in one moment she’s kissing this guy, and at the first exhibition I had, I only showed one image where neither of them are looking at me, they’re just making out with each other. For me it was a very uncomfortable scene, and I had another exhibition and I started to think about it – like why do I choose this one image, where they are both not looking at me, while if I look at the one hundred images I took of that scene it’s obvious that maybe the scene happened because I’m there. Agata is even asking me, “did you photograph it?” Like, “Bieke do you have it?” So maybe she started making out with the guy because she wanted to be photographed like this, or she thinks that I want this.
Agata in Paris, France, November 2nd, 2017 © Bieke Depoorter | Magnum Photos
Do you think that art ever allows for authenticity? Maybe it’s the acknowledgement that you being there does have an effect on the scene – does that make it authentic?
Yeah, I think you can be very real in making art. But also I think it depends on which story you want to tell – for me, I think, in my latest projects, I’m not hiding myself – because even though I might not always want it to be this way, it’s really about myself as well. I realise that I actually have a lot of similarities with the people I’m photographing or working or collaborating with, and I guess it’s also about the way you find your subjects. I never would think, “okay, let’s do a project about a woman I will find in a strip club and we’ll become best friends and we’ll question photography together” – that’s not how it goes, of course. You never know how the story will unfold, and to be open to it – that’s authentic.
Absolutely – it’s very personal. The intimacy of your work reminds me of Sophie Calle’s Suite Vénitienne – in questions of alternate identities, through unconventional relationships between photographer and subject, and in pushing the accidental encounter to its limit. What have been the greatest influences on your artistic practice?
When I started photography, I had no influences because I didn’t know anything about art. I think that was actually good for me. Now I know a lot about photography, and other photographers, and sometimes this also blocks you – because you have other images in mind, other projects that are great, and you see links with them and you’re like, “Should I look at it, should I not look at it?”, you know – sometimes I miss this thing from ten years ago when I didn’t know anything, and when I just went out and followed my gut feeling. My greatest influences now… it’s not always artists, I think it’s often the real world. To me, what’s really important is living life, and then making work about life. I think David Lynch was important to me a few years ago. I love the work of Cristina de Middel, and Dirk Braeckman, he’s a very good Belgian artist that I love. Alec Soth is a very good photographer of course, in the way that he looks at the world, and as a person – I like photography and art that you feel that the artist needs to do it. The audience is not the most important thing for them, but they have to make their art – there’s no other way. For me, that’s the art that I love the most – again, art that is ‘authentic’, haha!
Because of the collaborative aspect of Agata, alongside Agata herself, was the process of creating this book different from your previous publications?
The book was very different because it’s my first self-published book, and I worked closely with Tom Callemin, who is also a great artist actually and a great inspiration, and a good friend. We started this publishing platform together, Des Palais, and we first published his book, and then we published Agata together. He was very important in the book-making, and the idea of hiding pages and how we could do it. Also, Agata’s notes are included in the book, and most of them are from the notes she already did on the walls of the exhibitions. But my name is on the cover of the book – I’m the author, and it’s a thing I really thought about – should it be Agata Kay and Bieke Depoorter, should it be only me? And I made a decision that it’s my name because I really made those decisions. Then after this book, we realised that yes it was my decisions, but Agata also felt that she had more to say and she wanted to have more of a say in the decisions, and that’s when we decided to make the second book, with her name on the cover and Agata as the author. So that’s something we are still working on. But the process of making the work, that was very collaborative.
Agata as Germaine, Neuilly Plaisance, September 4 2018 © Bieke Depoorter | Magnum Photos
The tearing open of the pages to reveal hidden messages and photos underneath feels like this transgressive, exciting act. It’s like with the personal intimacy of your photos, we’re seeing something that is meant to be concealed from us – and then it can’t be undone. Could you talk a little more about these perforations, what they mean to you, and what made you decide to include them?
The book is a lot about the relationship between photographer and subject, who wants to show what, and how close we are, our boundaries… In the beginning I was deciding what I wanted to photograph, but I immediately felt that Agata also wanted to be seen in another way. Throughout the work, it has changed, and we started to tell her story. I guess the first time I photographed her, I thought I would only photograph her once, and I was already struggling with the idea that we want to photograph in one portrait, ‘the real person’. I think it’s a bit arrogant for photographers to think that it’s possible. When I realised it’s not possible, and Agata wanted to be seen in another way, we started to collaborate. In the beginning, I was photographing and she was showing me the places where she wanted to be photographed. That changed over the years, and Agata asked me to photograph some of the sexual performances she was doing, but I was actually reluctant to show this, because I didn’t want people to see her as a sex worker – but that’s also of course a part of her identity, so why should I hide it? These are all discussions we were having. So I guess there’s always this idea of like – what do we show? What is the true story of Agata? I don’t always agree with what she’s saying, and she doesn’t always agree with what I’m saying. I kind of want to play with this. Also, when we show just one image, we actually take 100 or 200 images, and if you see those 200 images it’s a totally different story. I think opening up the pages should be the decision of the audience themselves – whether they want to see the more complex story or another version of the truth, or not. The book on the outside is what I would show without reflecting on all of these things. In Beirut, Agata asked me for a disposable camera, to take some holiday images. If you then look at my ‘serious’ photos of her, and if you see her holiday images, it’s like a world’s difference. So those images are also inside, beneath the perforations. She photographed me as well, and those are inside.
There’s something in me that would be afraid to rip the pages open, in case I ruined the book!
What I like is that a lot of people in the art world don't dare to open the precious book and they don’t dare to tear open the pages. People who are not in the art world, they immediately want to see the full story. I think that’s interesting because some photographs are over the fold, over the perforations, so you have to literally tear open and ruin the picture. I love that the viewer has to decide themselves – do you want to see it or not? Once you open it, there’s no way back, because there’s a little bit of a mess now, you know? It’s quite confronting sometimes, with what is inside.
Agata in Lebanon, Beirut, August 3, 2018 © Bieke Depoorter | Magnum Photos
When you show your work in an exhibition, how does the dynamic of the photography change? Do you feel the work tells a different story as an installation than it does as a book?
With each exhibition I have, I have to re-think the project. I don’t like to just copy an exhibition to another space, because I think the space is important. For example, with Agata, it’s complex. With the book, I want the viewer or the reader to make the same steps as me – first, I think of the project like this, but then if I listen to Agata I have to change my mind or re-think the project, and in an exhibition I want this process as well. It’s a story for a reader. By the end of the exhibition, they think differently – it becomes more complex, and then maybe they are confused, and they don’t know anymore. For example, in my exhibition in Berlin, when you enter the space, Agata is saying that she feels disappointed about the book – that’s the first thing people hear. And then you go on and see the images, you see her writing, you go further, you see the projections of the images that I didn’t want to show. Agata is often writing on the walls of the exhibition, so that gives another layer. People can take our writings away as well, to read at home if they want, then maybe at home they reflect on it again in a different way. So, it’s complex, haha! A book is sometimes easier in a way because it’s a one-on-one thing, it’s very intimate – you follow one page after another, and now it’s two books in one, actually, once you open the whole thing up. Sometimes it’s difficult to translate this into an exhibition, so I try to see it as a different work. And sometimes I have to make decisions. With a book you can say more – people have more time for it. In an exhibition, the audience can’t read a whole book, they can’t read all the texts. So you have to think, what is the most important text that communicates the essence? But I don’t want to make it too easy, so there’s a lot of things to consider.
I suppose with a book it’s more within the private realm, you can read it in your own home. Whereas with an exhibition, there’s already a presupposition of what you think should be in a gallery, and it’s more public.
Exactly – more public. With the Agata project, that’s really something to think about. With Agata I’m always asking “is that okay?”, “do you feel comfortable?”, but then sometimes she wants to show more sexual images, more violent images, and with the book I let people choose if they want to see it. In the exhibition, you can’t really choose – you either see it or you don’t see it.
Finally, what are you working on now?
I’m making a work called Michael. It’s an ongoing project about a guy that I met in 2015, on the streets of Portland, Oregon. I saw him three times, and each time he gave me a suitcase full of materials – books he made himself, scrapbooks, essays, personal stuff – he also sent me a suitcase to Belgium. In this last suitcase, I found a letter in which he was asking for my help, so I went back to Portland to see him – and he disappeared. No-one knows where he is. So now since 2017, I’m trying to find him, and I’m trying to understand his life, and reconstruct his life by looking at his things. I became a private detective and tried to understand how he looks at the world by really researching his material. There’s also another project that I’m working on – it’s called Carte Memoir, and I’m using astronomy to talk about memories. It’s a lot of writing again, not so many images. It’s about how photography can help us to remember things, or if it’s not helping us at all. It’s a very personal project talking about the past and the history of photography, but also my own history and how I remember things. I hope to publish it by the end of the year.
Agata in Paris, France, November 2, 2017 © Bieke Depoorter | Magnum Photos
Agata is available to buy here.
