What inspired you to start publishing books?
I was thirteen when I first became interested in photography. I often went to the library in the small town where I lived, as there were no photo exhibitions or other places to find inspiration. Photobooks felt very democratic in that way, they could travel to small corners of the world. You may not be able to afford an artwork, but a photobook is a small art piece that you can own. It’s something you can return to again and again for inspiration.
What draws you to the photobook as a format?
I see the creation of photobooks as a sculptural process; the work is not finished until it takes the form of a book. In Archive of Longing, I worked with transparent paper to create layers, echoing the nature of longing itself. In Searching for Sivagami, I used the leporello (accordion) format, as the work is a search, unfolding like a map. The Milky Way (2014) reflects on the transition between childhood and adulthood. The photographs were taken in the same rural area where I lived and first began photographing at that age. The working method is based on memories and descriptions from old notebooks. The book takes the form of a diary, with handwritten text, ending with a torn-out final page.
How has your practice changed over time?
The book is essential to my practice. Each work finds its final form there. I have published eight photobooks, each shaped by the images themselves, as if the work quietly determines how it wants to be held, seen, and unfolded. My practice has not changed so much over time. I still work analogue, with the same camera, guided by a desire to photograph people. I search for fleeting glimpses, traces of inner lives, something unspoken, something withheld. Looking back, I begin to see more clearly what has always been there, heritage, memory and time. These themes move through the work like an undercurrent, resurfacing in different forms, again and again.
What's a book you've been involved with that surprised you — either in how it came together or how it landed?
Each book surprises me in its own way. They take on lives I cannot fully predict. But as they are like my babies I wish to get a shut out to my book Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down and Archive of Longing, that got less attention. Perhaps it is precisely because they have been less visible that they feel more intimate. The process has not been without struggle. There have been missteps along the way, books that had to be reprinted, moments of doubt, practical obstacles that tested my persistence, the issu with money. It is not easy to make photobooks. But these difficulties are also part of the work, part of the story each book carries. In the end, what remains is the connection, to the people, to the time we shared, and to the fragile attempt to preserve something that might otherwise disappear. The photobooks is a way of saying we were here, we are a part of the story.
What's next for you?
I have returned to the Appalachians, US, to photograph the people I portrayed 20 years ago, for my first book (Hillbilly heroin, honey 2010, Journal). The bond between people remains through time, generations and aging. The work are two chapters. My two series “Sunshine and hand me down sadness” and “The wild horses at Bonny blue” are intended as two upcoming books and exhibitions.