This interview was originally featured on the Vessel Editions site.
SC: The title of this new project is very vivid and poignant can you tell us a bit more about it?
YT: I think the title came from the feeling of contradiction that was omnipresent at the time of shooting the photographs. There was a lot of anger at that time in France. Anger against the government, anger against the protesters and for the people who were part of the strikes, anger against the police... The whole society was very polarised, and everyone felt like they had to share their opinion, but at the same time, most people were also very confused about what was happening and who to blame. To sum it up, I like that you can interpret the title in different ways depending on the context you place it in and hopefully, it gives people clues to some of the themes I tried to encapsulate in the book.
SC: Was it a conscious decision to use such striking visual language for the work?
YT: The choice of B&W film was pretty natural, as it represents the vast majority of what I’ve been shooting for the past 3/4 years. Bordeaux can become a bleak place during winter. Its grey, cold and the atmosphere during the protests (which lasted over a whole winter) made everything even grittier, which I think fitted a grainy and contrasty 35mm stock. During the protests, there were a lot of homemade flyers being handed out and posters being stuck everywhere in the streets. You’d see them gathering dirt, being deteriorated by the weather and ripped off day after day. I think that’s where the choice of deteriorating the images and screen printing the cover came from, as it added layers of imperfection and reminded me of the homemade propaganda found in the streets at that time.
SC: How did you find sequencing and laying out this zine having come from a predominantly moving image background?
YT: Sequencing was interesting as it really differed from what I was used to doing when working on Wasted Talent mags. When doing a magazine/book with text, the sequencing comes naturally, as most of the time it’s guided by an interview or a written story. Although, when you have no words at all, it’s like you tell the story by the way you arrange the images. In a way, it almost feels like creating a video sequence. In this case, I tried to arrange the images to reflect what living in Bordeaux felt on a daily basis during this time, as Gary and I would cross the city to skate, witnessing how the place and its inhabitants were impacted by the protests. Printing every photograph at my local copy shop and laying everything flat on the ground really helped me associate certain images with others and decide the order.
SC: Do you find it easy to move between still and moving images?
YT: It’s a different process for sure. I love making films but capturing a moving image usually demands way more time than taking a photograph. I love how stripped-down still photography is. No need for tripods, heavy camera bags...etc. You can just have your camera around your neck and snap a shot in a matter of seconds. I usually tend to take my time to compose and expose but most of what’s in the book was very spontaneous and instant driven.
SC: Could you give us a bit of an insight into the behind-the-scenes of making the work? Both in the shooting and production stages?
YT: The project happened from spending weekends at my friend Gary in Bordeaux over the years winter of 2018 and 2019. I’ve always taken photos of Gary and at first, there wasn’t any plan of doing a project—I was just documenting what we were doing every day.
At that time Gary lived on a popular street where thousands of people started protesting everySaturday. It’s hard to imagine now that it’s all over, but when the protests were on, it was part of everyone’s life as they were so big that you couldn’t escape it. I lived in Bordeaux for 4 years before that so the city always felt very familiar, and seeing how it was being transformed weekend after weekend (protests were on Saturdays) made me want to document this change and how it affected my friend’s life.
Being around the protests was intense. You don’t realise how much crowd, and heavy noise affect people until you’ve been in a big protest like this. The people screaming, mechanically marching to the sound of almost military-like drums, seeing the police aiming toward you with flash ball guns... It makes everyone goes into primal mode at some point. Add to that groups of people joining to cause trouble and you got the recipe for the whole thing to blow up. There were moments when things escalated with people throwing pavements, glass bottles and everything they could get their hands on at each other.
Production-wise, putting the book together two years after I shot the photos was a strange one. Gary moved away and I rarely go to Bordeaux, so it almost feels like closing a chapter in our lives. It was my first time putting a book together from A to Z, so even though it’s a pretty basic design, it was a big learning experience especially in the assembly part, as the cover was printed separately from the rest of the book.
SC: Could you tell us about some key bodies of work (photographic or other) that have influenced this new work?
YT: I shot these photos 3 or 4 years ago, so it’s hard to remember what I was inspired by at the time. I do remember watching Eraserhead and Elephant Man a lot back in the day and being inspired by the grittiness of these two worlds. The grittiness of the city in Eraserhead reminded me of how bleak and eerie certain neighbourhoods of Bordeaux looked during that time.
SC: Are any more photobooks or zines on that way? 👀
YT: My friend Josh Barrow and I have been trying to put together a joint photo book for 5 years... so I’m gonna say that this year is the one we finish it. I feel like now that it’s written somewhere we gotta make it happen, right?