Interview with Tadashi Ono : on “Fieldwork from Periphery”
— The “periphery” which you refer to in your work in this exhibition is the local reality of the suburbs of Paris. To where and to what is the fieldwork “from” these places headed?
First, I will explain a bit about the suburbs of Paris.
The suburbs of Paris cover a large area that extends in a circular form around the city of Paris that is comprised of 20 wards. The cityscape of this area is completely different from the general image people have of Paris. There are more than double the people living in the city, many of whom are the main source of cheap labor that supports the basis of social activities in Paris. Aside from parts of the western and southwestern areas, generally speaking, the standard of living in the suburbs is lower than inside the city, while the unemployment rate is higher, with many immigrant workers and people of immigrant origins.
The suburbs of Paris are generally called “banlieue,” an area that is excluded from Paris as a center, both socially and visually. The term “banlieue” itself connotes the sense of being secluded from a particular land.
I started living in the Seine-Saint-Denis département, a suburb that is located to the northeast of Paris (this is where the riots of last November first took place) from five years ago. In many ways, I realized that this area was cut off from central Paris, but at the same time, I also began to think that this “non-Paris” area is exactly where the present form of Paris or French society, and moreover, European civilization can be felt most strongly.
At first glance, this is an extremely ordinary local area, but I also found slightly rough and splintered surfaces that I could not ignore, which became the impetus for me to think about the history of European colonies, as well as various global issues concerning immigrants or the concentration of the population into urban areas.
The suburbs of Paris have become the “periphery” because they have been created, seen and represented (and at the same time concealed) by Paris, which is the “center.” The idea of “seeing” is closely related to power, while photography has continued to side with “those who see” since its invention. It is not without reason that photographers are not particularly favored in the suburbs.
The reason why I am not particularly interested in the growing number of photographic works from the 1990s, which aim to represent the suburbs as new visual territory, is because I do not feel that such works are reflective of this issue of seeing. Although the form of visual imagery may be novel, the state of the eye remains unchanged.
The phrase “from the periphery” refers to the idea of confirming my standpoint, of wanting to find eyes that can serve as possible alternatives to this idea of a ‘central’ viewpoint.
It refers to the fact that I myself am an immigrant from Asia, in other words, that I am a ‘peripheral’ person. In addition, my thinking is based on my local everyday life in the peripheral land of the suburbs of Paris, and not on my privileged status as a traveler. I am hoping that through the fieldwork “from the periphery” that includes these ideas, I will be able to accept the peripheral landscape as my own landscape.
I believe that the eye achieved from the periphery will be a more flexible and diversified eye that is different from the central eye.
The current Europe that has been constructed with the center-focused eye will only be able to resolve its current issues by achieving an alternative eye. To accept the periphery not as something objective but as part of oneself will be an opportunity to drastically change one’s perspective of the world, albeit the pain this value-transformation may bring.
— You said that you found “slightly rough and splintered surfaces that you could not ignore, which became the impetus to think about various global issues.” Could you elaborate on this? From the perspective of an outsider, I imagine that it was with the riots of 2005 that such rough and splintered surfaces became exposed. But I also think that your eyes are not just capturing negative things.
First of all, I do not want to think in positive/negative terms. If we simply state that the riots of last year were negative, then that wouldn’t be all that different from the attitude of politicians. Of course setting fire on cars doesn’t solve anything, but it is true that people of immigrant origins who live in the suburbs are subjected to discrimination and violence from the police and the society on a daily basis. In fact it is surprising that the riots did not break out until last year. The riots were triggered off by a fatal accident resulting from the police arbitrarily tracking youngsters, and the controversial comment by the Interior Minister that the “scums of society need to be cleaned.”
What I mean by “rough and splintered surfaces” is the antithesis to the polished surface of society that gradually slips through our fingers – and also to the stereotypical images of Paris and France – in other words, something like a cluster of microscopic symbols that suggest the existence of differing cultures and ways of living.
I am speaking of the attire and gestures of passers-by, the music playing in cars that run by, graffiti on the walls, accents overheard in conversations, and things on the streets…hidden among the range of things that may seem unimportant at first glance are signs that can be captured, starting from minute details like these, to various issues and conflicts that can be experienced in daily life such as gaining residency, buying houses or raising children.
— When looking at the urban landscape, which can appear to be “homogeneous” or “bleak,” often we realize how the landscape has been cut off from both the indigenous history and culture. This is especially true in a country like Japan where the landscape is repeatedly scrapped-and-built. How is it in the suburbs of Paris?
I think the cycle is much slower than it is in Japan but fundamentally it is the same. In the case of Paris also, its suburbs are characteristically cut off both in historical and geographical terms. The continuity has been interrupted not only of the land, but also of its residents, many of whom are immigrants. But I am not so interested in denying this sort of landscape as a “bleak” place, nor in pursuing a “contemporary sensibility” or a photogenic element. We must not forget that the suburban landscape that lies before our eyes now is the direct consequence of our society and economy. I think we can get glimpses of the violence that inheres in us. The “deadened landscape” (in Japanese, the word “sappukei” which means bleak is written “kill-landscape”) is a reflection of how we live.
— It seems as though the existence of “plants” play an important role in this series.
Even before I started photography, I was interested in the organic nature and form of plants. I think there is an “organic intelligence” so to say, condensed inside plants, especially in trees. They are highly sophisticated and complete in all aspects, in form, structure and as life support systems. I think many pioneering photographers turned their cameras to trees just after photography was invented not only because of the naturalist orientation of the 19th century but also because they wanted to visualize the intelligence inherent in the organic forms and the intelligence that is of a different system than that of photography.
The weeds that cover the barren land may appear at first glance to be chaotic and disordered but in reality, they are collective entities that continue to transform by repeating the cycle of migration and growth. There is the strong struggle for survival, which does not allow for the life of the plant to be eradicated all at once.
The collective of organic forms that are complexly intertwined appears to be on the extreme end of Modernist and geometric forms but in fact embraces and surpasses these forms.
Geometric frames — and photographic frames also — take in what is inside the frame, and eliminate what is outside. But the weeds growing on barren land are not contained within a set frame; the seeds and underground stems cross over the frame, eventually enshrouding the frame altogether.
I feel that the complex forms of the weeds covering the barren land are organic existences that cross over such frames, which somehow seem to overlap with the way people live in the suburbs.
— Like the motif of “plants,” the “reference” to 19th century photography seems to occupy an important place in your work. What exactly are you referring to?
Indeed many of my works develop as if constructing a dialogue with photographs of the 19th century. Photography progressed as a new medium to record as well as to express in the 19th century. I believe some of the photographers of this period had outstanding talent and were very open to ideas such as the state of the gaze, the distance between the photographer and the subject, and the sensibility to light. Of course there are some aspects that cannot be wholly accepted, for example, photography’s relation to colonialism. However, there is still much to learn from their photographs and I feel the desire to incorporate aspects of these photographs and to place them anew into a contemporary context.
In many cases, the photographers of the 19th century are generally recognized as primitive documentary photographers, but I think this stems from the post-20th century viewpoint that esteems modern photographs with an artistic orientation. I believe it was Baudrillard who said that to be modern is to flee forward as a result of continuing to create new things. Personally I do not feel the need to be so modern now, or to continue inventing new styles. In fact, I try to think of ways to steadily step forward by reevaluating the past. I want to record time that has slowly made its way into the landscape by referring to history, as opposed to capturing the moment. I think photographs can be quite significant as tools to depict such things, and I also believe that photography is a paradoxical medium through which expressions emerge while pursuing documentation.
For example, my series of weeds may be similar to the series “Grass” by Alfred Stieglitz or the photographic works by Harry Callahan, which suggest a Modernist development oriented towards an all-over painterly surface that has existed in the range of works from Kandinsky to abstract expressionism (although this may not be conveyed too clearly due to the limited number of works shown in this exhibition for lack of gallery space), but I wanted to pursue a different, alternative possibility. This is because I felt that a Modernist development is after all, equivalent to the mass housing complex itself. And it was then that the photographers of the School of Fontainebleau presented me with an unexpected prospect. In other words, they told me not to break down the organic reality into abstract forms and to depict with light.
Interviewer: Rei Masuda (The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo)