Cristina de Middel: "I didn't like the moral superiority of war photographers when it came to telling the world's story."

BarcelonaCristina de Middel is one of our most internationally renowned photographers. Winner of the National Photography Prize at the young age of 42, she is currently presenting a selection of her work from approximately fifteen years in Africa at the Seltz Gallery in Barcelona, ​​opening November 15th. The works are displayed on the gallery walls in mural-like sequences arranged like large pages that could be read as comic book panels. WaterfallsThe title of the exhibition is polysemous. It refers to the eye disease caused by wear and tear, like a curtain obscuring vision. Wear and tear of the eyes from having seen so much. It also alludes to the cascade of images and reels that fall through the internet and social media, eternally, without interruption. A cascade that wears down and blinds. Misinformation or information overload, which ends up disrupting the ability to see clearly, to understand what is happening in the contemporary world and why.

Cataracts can be cured... But perhaps in the West our problem is endemic myopia. Are we incapable of focusing?

— Perhaps. After so many years of traveling and observing the streets and people of Africa, I still haven't understood what's happening. I've photographed Africa not to make it known, but to understand it myself. Although I don't think I'll ever truly understand it. It's vast, boundless.

The photographs from the series Lookout They are an image of that blindness.

— This series is the result of photographing through the window of a taxi during a forty-minute ride through the market in Lagos, the capital of Nigeria. For me, it was the only way to photograph that reality, so often photographed by others. Going out into the street with my camera would have completely changed the outcome. I would have become a walking dollar sign among those people. All eyes would have been on me; that magical randomness of everyday life, where everyone goes about their own business, would have ended.

Africa has been one of the most photographed territories, where the most reporters have tried out "their style".

— Yes. I haven't forgotten. I was actually drawn to the work of the great reporters in Africa. I know them and I respect them.

But the language is not the same...

— I started in journalism. There I learned to write with images. Imitation was important, like at art school, when you have to paint grayscale still lifes and copy the classics to learn. In photography, perhaps at the beginning it's also necessary to pay attention to framing, focus, lighting, black and white, etc., imitating the classic photographers, those of black and white. To follow a documentary approach. But at a certain point, that language exhausts you. What else is there? When you've tested yourself in all of that and given everything that was demanded of you, something more important begins: the meaning of your work. What to say. How to say it. It's not just about covering the facts, but about understanding them, creating images to explain them. Will they be intelligible to those I want to be their audience?

For Africans, then? Are you worried about them being intelligible?

— Of course. I did a commissioned project for the Lagos Photo Festival: the story of Fela Kuti's mother. This exhibition includes several photographs from that ongoing project. It took me a long time to depict those events. I think the work could be interpreted as the telling of a myth: that of the woman who finally gets her revenge on those who have wronged her.

The image is quite comical, to begin with...

— Yes, it is. And making it was a real catharsis of laughter. Although this series, Unknown SoldierThis is part of a terrible true story. In 1978, hundreds of soldiers stormed the house where singer Fela Kuti's mother, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, was staying and threw her out of a window. After a supposed investigation, the government determined that the culprit was "an unknown soldier." I decided to photograph the precise moment when this unknown soldier floats in mid-air after being thrown out, while specific women watch from their windows. Each photograph in the series was carefully crafted: the women in front of their windows are themselves. And the soldiers wear military uniforms that we secretly rented for a few hours. The soldiers' jumps were performed on a trampoline, and care was taken to ensure that the victims' faces expressed the drama of the fall. The process turned out to be a rather comical performance that seeks to resolve a situation of sustained infamy through the revenge of those women who feared the soldiers who raped, kidnapped, and abused them. Specific soldiers of their corrupt governments. The final chapter of this work, which is yet to be written, is the portrait of African women drivers.

Poetic justice. Or animistic magic... Your work is incomprehensible without humor. We can't suppress laughter, even with the most serious subjects...

— For me, a sense of humor is a means of expression. I couldn't live without it. It's important to eliminate formality when approaching topics and situations. I practice creative irreverence. Everything can be analyzed and parodied.

Your images have had to find their place in the art gallery. I imagine that creativity is what, little by little, distanced you from the media...

— I left the news media because there was no room for me. What space was there to express my opinion? On one hand, there were the news stories, which were the space reserved for photography. And on the other, there were the opinion pieces. The problem with the press is that it confuses truth with reality. That's why photography, to which this quality of veracity is attributed, is never allowed to occupy the opinion space, which is supposedly subject to subjectivity. But this "truth" that is distilled in the press is still just one possible formulation of reality. What cannot be denied is reality itself, which exists and is there. Everything else is just a different way of expressing it.

How did you take the step of trying this other way of explaining reality?

— Classic reportage photography relies on the impact of the photographer's intervention. It's essential that the photographer be a witness, always projecting their physical point of view onto the environment. They are a hero who overcomes hardship and conflict, risking their life and returning triumphant with a report. When I heard war photographers recount their war stories at conferences, while I was training to be a photographer, I thought, "I'll never be like that." I didn't like that moral superiority when it came to explaining the world. The feeling of being on the right side of history. I felt uncomfortable with that way of mythologizing a job that, for me, was one of service, like the work a surgeon might do. We would be very surprised to hear a surgeon talk about their work with this epic emphasis. Why aren't we scandalized when we hear photographers speak like this?

Why have we come to see photojournalists as having something of mythological heroes about them?

— Indeed. The first to behave this way was Robert Capa, the inventor of the heroic dimension of the war reporter. A brilliant photographer, yes. But he is revered regardless of his work, for his way of facing life, of putting it at risk. Even today, young photographers have that cliché in their minds. They want to travel to a country in conflict at all costs. And I ask them: what are you going to look for there? What will you bring back besides photographs? Do you already have a story? Because traveling there is pointless. Surely a photographer from that place can provide a more coherent account of the events. To work as a reporter, you have to have something to tell; you can't go looking for it on the spur of the moment.

Today people read little and watch a lot, so ideas quickly fall into stereotype and copying.

— The truth is, I don't have much faith in the younger generations. But I understand the disorientation of young people. These days, there's a lack of role models, those people with ideas that shaped the 20th century, truly inspiring figures. Leaders like Che Guevara, like Gandhi... These new heroes are missing. If someone on the left emerges who might surprise us, with their own voice, with different ideas, they are destroyed and persecuted until they disappear. Only those on the far right survive, protected by thousands of blind followers on social media, ready to mobilize.

The greatest harm of these discourses is denialism. That's why it's so important to stick to the facts. Could there be opinion without facts?

— What are facts without opinion? I'm not surprised by the image of the world that AI is generating, supposedly born free from real facts. There's a lack of ideas, a lack of curiosity. A lack of imagination on the part of those who use it. Is the most they can come up with pink unicorns? Things that grow hair? A car with hair! What do we desire? What intrigues us? To see what hairy things would be like? There's little surprise in all of this. Reality is much more astonishing. It's a treasure trove for the imagination. My fictions feed on reality. For that very reason, the product of my work can confuse people. Reality isn't what people understand as "truth," the legal proof that something "like this" happened. This truth, expressed in a fixed and unchanging way, is nothing more than a self-serving, directed expression of reality. The facts still weigh heavily, they still push.

But nowadays, with so much noise on social media, where everyone has an opinion... What exactly do you mean by giving an opinion?

— Opinion is nothing more than expressing one's own experience, what one has lived through, as evidenced by events. It is increasingly important to work, to narrate from one's own experience. Without experience, one cannot penetrate reality. Today, subjectivism is making a strong comeback. But it is important to distinguish between this self-experience and simply talking about oneself. It is about speaking about the world from one's own experience. [...] This conversation is turning into something like a Paulo Coelho self-help book. These coffee shop philosophies...

How did you feel wielding so much power at Magnum, with so many great and memorable photographers under your command, you, a young woman?

— Well, the previous president was also a woman, Olivia Arthur. But she was very discreet. I never felt like I was wielding power in the way a leader might understand it. In any case, I dared to try to change things a little. It all happened so fast! My appointment came when I was still learning. It was going from knowing nothing to leading. From being an apprentice in the profession, I went to managing an entire company. It was a very extreme leap. From one day to the next, I joined as a member and was immediately elected president of the agency. Being president of Magnum meant having a lot, a lot of work. I had to do things I never imagined I would have to do, like finding myself in the position of having to call Steve McCurry—Steve McCurry!—to give him a piece of my mind. Or, a week after taking over as president, having to write an obituary for Elliot Erwitt. In a way, at Magnum I learned to address the elderly with respect. It wasn't a lack of respect for elders, but a gesture of trust between us.

Why do you think they chose you?

— It was a surprise to me, but I can tell you about it. I was that necessary stone to join a bridge still under construction between documentary and conceptual art. Perhaps it's because of my surname, Middel, that I've always been in the middle. I was asked to come from both sides to establish a dialogue between the classic reportage of the early days and this new way of narrating reality, closer to subjectivism and fiction, that had been emerging in recent times.

I can imagine the pressure and also having to deal with the business world...

— I never wanted to lose the playful spirit during my tenure so I could work more freely, without so much pressure. I think I've helped facilitate the entry of freer, more creative voices. But the financial aspect was very significant, overwhelming. Whereas documentary sales previously accounted for 80% of the agency's revenue, today they don't even reach 10%. We had to reinvent ourselves, create courses, scholarships, find other commercial outlets, and establish links with other companies. It's not just a crisis in the media's demand for photography. They were asking me for everything. I had to be everywhere. I learned a tremendous amount. Last June, my term as president of Magnum ended, which I had already extended a little. Now I realize how much the pressure has eased when these emails are down to just 20. Now I'm freer to return to my own work.

And what's on your mind now?

— Now I live in Brazil, in Salvador de Bahia, which is like a mirror of Africa, where I had been, Nigeria, in that corner across the Atlantic Ocean that fits its shape. There, the population is 90 percent African. But there is that cultural gateway left by the Portuguese that allows me to understand a little more, to have keys to approach Africa. I've bought a large house. A space no bigger than this one, where I will create a center for photography.

How did you come to the decision to stay in Brazil?

— It was by chance, well, because I fell in love. He was also my project partner, Bruno Morais, with whom I carried out the long work Midnight at the CrossroadsWith this, we traveled through the countries on the journey that the spirit Èsù accompanied enslaved people from the African continent, specifically Benin, to the New World: Haiti, Cuba, and finally, Brazil. Èsù was demonized by missionaries of the official religion. Our images demonstrate the different forms and characteristics that Èsù adopted in different territories: in Benin he is a totem, in Cuba a child, a young man in Brazil, and finally, an old man in Haiti. Always in flux. He is the messenger and also the lord of crossword puzzles, due to his symbolism. That is why there are so many twins here (and he gestures to the room), so many opposing forces, too.

And this installation, Cristina, is it leftover work? [In the center of the room there are framed photographs piled up]

— These are copies of my photographs that have traveled to exhibitions. I thought the pile would get much higher. I've underestimated it! The public gets used to the images and then always wants to see the same thing. This leads to a kind of wear and tear, not just of the viewer's perception, but of the images themselves. I put this repetition to the test in the exhibition. A lotwhere I gathered the images that collectors and curators had been requesting of my photographs over the years. The photographs repeated themselves like an echo. There comes a point when they become mute, they no longer say anything.

With them you've been able to make a...

— Of course not! We'd have to empty the world of sculptures. We already have enough with images, which are lighter and more suggestive.