In this interview, held during their time on last year's !GWAK Residency, we speak to creatives Arhantika Rebello and Djenaba Davis-Eyo about the challenge and joy of capturing the family.
Lisa Elde (Djenaba's mother) photographed by Djenaba Davis-Eyo
MN: The family portrait is an age-old tradition. How do you hope to breathe new life into capturing the family?
AR: For the the two family-oriented shoots I’ve done, ('Aunties' and the one of my grandmother), the fashion, the styling and the colours were the main focus. Bright and visually dynamic, is I believe, how we breathe new life into the age-old tradition of family portraiture.
DDE: I shoot film photography, so I definitely try to replicate the old traditions of photography as much as possible. I mostly do portraiture - for the fun of it, but I've also found using family as subjects is a warm and intimate experience. Examining the finer details of faces that you see every day is weirdly surprising, and yet deeply nostalgic. I usually shoot my mum around our home, and I have started discovering all the interesting shapes and angles of her face, and how that changes in certain lighting, and features that I have noticed within myself - things that I never noticed before.
MN: How does your work speak to, or react against, the nostalgic and personal nature of family photo albums? How does capturing the family change when it shifts from private to public?
AR: For me, capturing the family wasn't about expressing nostalgia, it was about capturing the individual(s) in the present - the relationships and the bonds as they are now. I've understood that if the family are truly close, then not much changes when you're photographing them publicly rather than privately.
DDE: My work acts more as a study of the body and face, rather than a documentation of family events. My work isn't fixed in time; it responds to shape, colour, space and texture - movement of the body, shapes of a nose, the consistency of fabric. In public, I still focus on these aspects, but it usually becomes more complex to catch; I usually end up with a mixture of photographing life's little quirks and responding to my original concept.
MN: Arhantika - you photographed Nicole Ready’s aunties for DOCKS magazine. What was engaging with and capturing another family like? How has it differed to photographing your own family, such as your grandparents?
AR: Nicole and I had been friends for a while, so I felt very comfortable when she brought me to her family home. We both come from ethnic backgrounds and I saw a lot of similarities in the way her family interacted to mine. It felt warm and familiar in a sense, as they welcomed me in. I would say one of the main differences was that when photographing her family, I was working to capture her vision, not mine.
'AUNTIES' for DOCKS Magazine - Arhantika Rebello
MN: How does your work around the family explore feelings of belonging?
AR: I think to explore and accomplish the feeling of belonging through a series of images, it's essentially about capturing the organic dynamic between the family, which is what I always aim to do.
DDE: I actually feel kind of isolated or removed from the setting when photographing family. I become an observer, belonging to the realm of the witness. I feel like I've taken the eye of someone outside the family - the lens gives me a new point of view. So in terms of belonging...I don't really feel my work portrays that.
MN: To what extent does your work around the family engage with documentary or autobiography?
AR: I tend to not shoot much documentary photography, so when it comes to my family, I feel like I'm shooting through an autobiographical lens. But with my main passion being fashion, I always try to engage in editorial whenever I can, as done with Nicole for her magazine.
DDE: For me, it is both: I'm documenting the existence of my family in the most personal way. They have given me the gift of existing in this world and are responsible for the shape of my character, and that in itself is a type of autobiography - studying the people that make me, me. Despite sometimes feeling removed in the experience of photographing them, it helps me look at their finer details. Understanding who they are helps me reflect on myself as a social being.
Djenaba Davis-Eyo
MN: In Gillian Wearing’s project ‘Family Stories’, she takes self-portraits dressed as members of her family, often wearing eerily lifelike masks of their faces. To what extent do you feel you appear in your images of the family? Can it be seen as a projection of the way you see or understand them?
DDE: Because I take on the eye of the witness when photographing my family, I tend not to feel a sense of projection until the photos have been developed and returned back to me. When I actually see them and examine the photograph, that's when I start to feel myself as part of them - especially in the eyes; all my family look at the camera and acknowledge the lens in the same way - softness, embarrassment, curiosity...sometimes mild fear.
AR: I took a series of images for my grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary earlier this year, and I believe those images are a reflection of myself, in a way, because they encompassed my family, my culture and my perspective from behind the lens.
Arhantika Rebello
MN: Writing for Elephant, Rebecca Fulleylove said:
How do you feel your work reacts to or engages with this?
DDE: This is why I separate these worlds. I never use my phone to take pictures of important memories or family - my phone is for fleeting moments in time. I use film photography to engage with the world authentically, I never know how a photo will come out and that's what I like. They are stored as negatives and they are physical items that I feel has a kind of time capsule/keepsake energy about them. I fear that one day digital photos will be wiped away forever and then there is no record of your precious collections...film photography is a kind of insurance for me.
MN: Djenaba - your mother is also a creative, and as well as photographing her, you have been photographed together for publications such as Luncheon and Sleek. How have other photographers engaged with your family dynamic? How does it differ to the photographs you take privately of your mother?
DDE: Shooting alongside my mother is an interesting experience. It's where the similarities and differences of our personalities are exposed the most. My mother is quite lively and energetic on set, whereas I am quite meek. We bring the opposites out of us and tend to act like mirrors. We both like movement and usually engage in a sort of arm and body waltz, a creative conversation, action and reaction. Photographers tend to be quite in awe of this and usually avoid interrupting and try to capture the moment. The difference is I feel more exposed in these settings - I'm suddenly not the observer; I'm directly engaging with my mother and our separate entities are reminded of our common assets.
Djenaba Davis-Eyo
MN: Where do you want to take your work next?
AR: I'm constantly learning and growing and that's all I can hope for my work and myself as time passes. I'm working on growing my digital content platform QUAKE, and would love to feature some visually strong family-oriented shoots on there.
DDE: My work has no specific journey, I want to continue as I am really. I like the quiet conversations that take place during a photo-shoot. I regard them as a reminder of my/their character.
HOSTED BY MILLIE NORMAN
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