How was the project “Americana” born?
I have always been very attracted by the USA, and was completely fascinated as a little girl by the american imagery and pop culture. Last year I decided to go to California for a couple month and stay with some friends to talk about work related projects. It was an incredible shock and I decided within a few days to stay there for longer than I had planned. I started to travel a little bit in California and wanted to see how was the rest of the country. My friends and I planned a road-trip going from Los Angeles to New-York by the north side of the country. During this planning phase I had an idea for a puzzled project in which I would document thoroughly every state I would visit.
How did your first approach to the American dream imagery happen?
Through movies, books, music, and pop culture in general. As a kid I was addicted to MTV and that was my main window at the American imagery. Now when I say ‘dream imagery’, obviously on MTV it was stupid shows and music videos but that seemed to be so far away from my reality that I was completely mesmerized. The image I had then of the country was a really free place with cool people doing everything they wanted. As I said, I was a kid.
What made you want to explore that concept, that imagery?
Rather fast I realized there were many different kind of American imagery and after traveling through California I figured that a country that size was meant to have many different layers and facettes. At the genesis of my project the images I had in mind were works of Edward Hopper for instance and I feared I was going to focus on architecture, diners, commercials etc but very fast nature imposed itself in my work and I focussed mainly on the landscapes and small peculiar details I would find here and there.
Do you see it as something historical, with a nostalgic sense, or something living and active
in the contemporary days?
Both I’d say as most of the imagery is thought as ‘vintage’ by American themselves. They create news restaurants that look exactly like old diners, keep producing billboards or signs that remind of a glorious time of America. So it is at the same time an historical imagery and something very alive and preserve with nostalgia in contemporary days. America has always been a gem for photographers from all over the world, but for Americans as well, they seem to be very proud and attached to the ‘efficiency of their imagery’ and they should, it is a strong symbol of American culture.
What it means to you to see the American dream with the Russian lens? What is this Russian
lens?
It’s my eye bathed in American imagery while growing up on the other side of the world, on a very different country. The way I see America is obviously very different from the way Americans see their country. Not only do I have a ‘stranger’s eye’ but I come from a country that used to be a foe and that is pretty much the opposite of what America is. Because of that conflicted past that pretty much made the USA look like the good guys and Russia the bad guys, was going there a bit apprehensive. I had a lot of expectations and curiosity.
You haven’t grown up in US. How this fact influences your work? How the distance (not physical but cultural) helps you?
Because nothing is familiar, everything is to be discovered thus interesting. My work insists on close-ups and random details of what I’ve encountered. Many things are completely new or strange to me, even the tiniest details which is a constant source of inspiration. I like to document everything I see in order to create a visual puzzle of my time there, and put together things that are familiar and things that are completely strange to me.
In your work are you trying to delete this distance or either to use it to create a particular view?
Definitely to use it. It is more interesting to me to have a personal angle and to work as a stranger.
Your photographs are realistic, but I also feel something surreal, like if there were something spiritual that you are searching in the everyday American sketches. Is that something that you actually look for?
I very much like this idea and feel like my works questions the relationship between artificial and natural.
For instance having a heavy use of flash on nature creates a feeling of artificial colors and textures, like plastic plants almost. I am also very attracted to patterns and prints of images, for instance the niagara falls as a wallpaper. I find it interesting to challenge reality and fiction in an image and create encounters between man-made and organic.
What kind of spiritualism are you interested in?
The relationship between all elements primarily and the interaction between humans and fauna/ flora. I would like to conduct a large scale photo project fully dedicated to the native Americans rites. I am fascinated by the relationship they have with the elements that are surrounding them. It makes a lot of sense to me, especially nowadays as we live in a very destructive era for the planet.
How does this spiritualism link to your journey? I mean: how does this spiritual and abstract research link to your documenting activity? Are these two aspects separated or are the two faces of the same coin?
Two faces of the same coin most definitely. I am documenting the progress I am making in my journey and try to gather pieces of a puzzle that will in the end reveal a something about me. I am documenting my quest as well as the things that are around me, influencing and shaping me.
Your documenting activity is divided per every state. Is your spiritual research divided as well or is something that continues beneath, kind of like a second plot?
It’s very linear on the contrary. Dividing the story by states made perfect sense to me, in order to emphasize the immensity of the country and its various facets. The ‘spiritual research’ happens to be the same everywhere but the places I’m at deeply influence my experience. I sometimes stayed a long time in some places and just passed others, some states were absolutely lovely and others were sources of anxiety I wanted to separate the stories to truly illustrate the time I spent there and believe the project has more strength with several chapters of a story instead of the full book at once.
Do you feel this project more similar to a personal diary or either a cold reportage?
A mix of both I think. Everything in a way is reportage to me, every image has the purpose of documenting something, illustrating a moment. But this project is definitely conducted as a personal diary and thrive on my own experience.
You want to set a certain rhythm: is there a particular narrative, or a continuing plot, that you are following?
Not really. I am just constantly compulsively taking pictures during an experience that is in motion. I traveled thousands of miles and my work was set on the rhythm of our progress.
How does the other huge American imagery (and literature) about the journeys on the road and the long highways influence your work?
It doesn’t really. I am aware of this of this imagery/literature and read many stories -from the Beat generation for example- I discovered works like Stephen Shore’s but this background did not influence me in my work or my aspirations. It’s always the same story, the same pictures, the same roads. Far from saying my project is ground breaking -the mere idea of the american road trip story is done and redone- I feel like my angle is at least a bit new. In such big spaces I often focus on close-ups and details instead of the big pictures. If this major road-trip imagery ever influenced me its in the fact that I wanted to do anything but that. It doesn’t show in my work but a very strong influence of mine is Philip-Lorca diCorcia. The way he uses the very efficient american imagery as a prop in his work is brilliant. His work shows a dark aspect of the glamorous image we can have from the United States.
Once I read Asimov’s “Prelude to Foundation” where the main character has to find a way to gather every lifestyle and every information from the whole universe to create the psychohistory, a discipline that can predict the future. At the end, he finds out that the planet where he lives is so complex and so various that is enough to represent the universe. I’ve always thought that one of the possible meanings was that the variety of one country could be metaphor of the variety of the whole world. You are documenting in a journey a whole country, could your journey be a metaphor of a journey through the world? What do you think about that?
Yes, absolutely. I very much like this idea of psychohistory and I think this metaphor makes a lot of sense and like the idea of various worlds in the same world. Every country in a way is in its own world and there is not enough time in a lifetime to gather information about each country. Ideally I would like to keep traveling in America for several years and then keep traveling in other countries for as long as I can and document as much as possible everything I saw and did.
Your photographs are published in the website of livewild according to a certain composition. How does this composition influence your work (or at least the choice of the photographs)?
Working on the layout of my work is a rather important part of my project. I wanted to present my work in a very free and playful setting in order to, again, play with the rhythm of the journey. It’s the work that influences the composition and not the other way around. I work on diptychs and echoes between images and atmospheres.
For your photographs are now published on a website, you can go back to change them whenever you want, also when your journey will be over, you will be able to update some news. When will you consider this project really over? Will it ever be really over?
I actually already do go back to the website from time to time and change, rearrange a couple of things. It is meant to be an ongoing work for as long as I am traveling and will therefore never be over.