Page 33 - PHOTODOT 2017년 9월호 VOL.46 Sept

시베리아 횡단 기차, 몽골 | Transsiberian, Mongolia 'East to East' series 2003

You were selected as the ‘Photographer of the Year’ of would be a good idea.’ Maybe the West does not exist.
International OpenCall in DongGang International Pho- What would be your most impressive place and episodes
tography Festival of 2017. I would like to hear your brief while you were taking photographs in Moscow, Siberia,
words. Mongolia, Beijing and other many places?
Such high dstinctions are the proof that being demanding and strict Travelling for me is not a leisure hobby. Travelling is repeating in
with myself opens to a wider perception of my creation. spite and dispite of me what my ancestors have been doing for
‘From the East to the East' is a series of works from 2002 generations and generations : ‘hit the road’ (in the literal sense). Ex-
to 2009. What motivated you that work? And could you tract oneself from the birthplace to earn their daily bread (or bowl
tell us what the meaning of the title is? of rice). I do not travel, I am pushed on the road by an inner demon
The exact title is ‘East to East’’. Three words (in English). Concise. that would not let me live until I am on the road alone in the world
Maybe the title questions the notion of the ‘East’. Why is there an in a totally foreign country with foreign people with foreign codes.
‘Eastern’ part of the world and a ‘Western’? My parents decided Be it ‘Moscow, Siberia, Mongolia, Beijing and other many places’, the
to leave their country when they were twenty and went by foot real world in itself does not exist. The only reality is the perception
to Paris, ‘Western World’. Therefore I was born in Paris. Life was one has of the world. My photography is an encounter between
difficult in Paris, so they sent me to my mother’s family in the village the outside world and my inner perception. Consider my photos
of Livold where I spent my childhood to be taken back again when as images of a dream (or nightmare?). The moment you want to put
I was seven and a half. I think with my brain in French, I vibrate with words on a dream it falls apart. This is the reason why writing is so
my ‘Eastern Slavic’ emotions and guts. ‘East to East’ is maybe going difficult to me.
from the ‘East’ of my origings to the ‘East’ I feel more central than What would be the special meaning for 'photography' and
the ‘Western’ civilization. Going from ‘East’ to ‘East’ could be a way 'travel' to yourself as an artist?
to say I don’t feel the ‘Western’ world. When Gandhi was asked : Travel photography, war photography, landscape photography do
‘What do you think of Western civilization?’ he answered ‘I think it not mean much to me. Robert Capa is not a good war photogra-

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