Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Dear iDEALS,
Jackie Nickerson is a fine art photographer who has lived and worked in London and New York. She has an international reputation for photographing people and their environments. In September 2002, Jonathan Cape published ‘FARM’, a book of portraits of farm workers taken all over southern Africa. This is how I firstly came aware of her work and asked Vassilis Zidianakis get me in touch with her. Nickerson's on-going series, ‘Faith’ will be published by SteidlMack in 2007. She has been short listed for the John Kobel prize and nominated for the prestigious Becks Futures Award and her work is represented in many important collections such as the Irish Museum of Modern Art and the Santa Monica Museum. She is represented by the Jack Shainman Gallery in New York.
FilepMotwary: Jackie, first of all thank you for accepting this interview. As you may understand, this is a great honor for me and the readers of this issue. I would like to ask why it was so long for you to respond to my first letter, sent to you in September 2006. It’s been a whole year, right?
JackieNickerson: My goodness, has it been that long!!??
FilepMotwary:The first image posted here, comes from your last book entitled FAITH. How hard was it for you to convince these holy people pose for you? Nuns and Priests, in any religion have their own “uniforms” like a soldier does, a flying attendant or a pilot. How would you describe fashion in a monastery? These people dress regarding their position or status? How did this experience you had reflect in your inner self?
JackieNickerson: Well, you call them Holy people but actually I think they’re just ordinary people with a good idea of what they’re supposed to be doing with their life. They were very welcoming and I didn’t really have too much of a problem convincing them to ‘let me in’ although not everyone said yes. And not everyone wears some kind of religious clothing – it tends to be the more enclosed orders that still have the habit.
I guess the full habit comes from around the time when Christian religious life was established in Europe which was around the Middle Ages and you can see that it hasn’t changed much. Maybe lighter materials. Each order lives by a different rule so that dictates how they dress, and everyone in that particular community will all dress in the same way. I have to say it was a privilege to be allowed into places that have never been seen by the outside world before and I really enjoyed working on the project although it wasn’t always easy.
FilepMotwary:I know this might seem perverted, but in a way I can see some repressed sexuality in these images, hints of sexuality in both sexes. Has something like this occurred to you or am I just the only pervert in the room?
JackieNickerson: I didn’t know you were a pervert!! How interesting! Personally, I really don’t think that sexuality can be ignored in anyone because we’re all human beings. And part of us is sexual so it’s no good trying to pretend that it doesn’t exist because it does. And that applies to everyone including the people in the Faith pictures. The religious decide to live a celibate life and that’s their decision but I would guess that it’s not always going to be easy. I mean, they’re just ordinary men and women.
FilepMotwary:Two years ago when I expressed my interest in your work, Vassilis Zidianakis ( Curator of Pleats and Rip exhibitions at Benakis Museum.Athens) showed me “FARM”, your previews book featuring portraits of farmers in Africa. Each image looked like fashion campaign for it’s colors and the way these people dressed…One could see how tired they were from the hard work but on the other hand, happiness was all over the place, from the colors the chose to wear, the way they mixed them together and the ambition to look stylish, or at least that’s what it seemed. Can you please explain this experience?
JackieNickerson:I went to Zimbabwe to stay with a friend whose family had a farm near Harare. After a few weeks I decided to stay on for a while to recharge my batteries. After a few months, I decided to start to take pictures and, after many months, decided that I wanted to concentrate on the agricultural portraits and landscapes. I bought a small flatbed truck and started to travel around and went to South Africa, Malawi and Mozambique as well as all over Zimbabwe.
In the beginning I just took pictures of everything – landscapes, sunsets, villages and I didn’t really know what I was looking for. Then I realized that the most inspiring thing was the people I was meeting around the farms. The poverty they live in seems relentless, as does the work they do everyday. But they didn’t seem to let their circumstances crush their spirit. So I gravitated to the place where they worked – in the fields – and began to try to create a visual language that made me look right at the person, as an individual, in their own right. It was an experience that I’ll never forget and I enjoyed it immensely.
FilepMotwary: While reading the documents you provided me about your work and career so far, I noticed a page with notes/compliments coming from various magazines, especially from the fashion fields: Numero, Vogue, W, Dazed n’Confused..Why do you think your work is so highly respected in fashion? How do you see fashion nowadays?
JackieNickerson: Well, that ‘s a huge compliment and I’m very flattered that anyone should think that my work is worthy of special attention. I think fashion people are very creative, innovative and are constantly looking at the world for inspiration, no matter where it comes from. Today, fashion can still be interesting but I feel that the creative process is far more controlled now than it used to be. And part of that comes down to the technical side of the creative process, i.e. digital photography, and the way that it’s changed the dynamic of a fashion shoot. I also think there’s more pressure to create images that have a wider audience appeal.
FilepMotwary:How was your experience in Athens when you came to participate in both PTYCHOSEIS:FOLDS+PLEATS and “Rrripp”? How did you collaborate with Issey Miyake and how did the audience receive the video afterwards?
JackieNickerson: When Vassilis Zidianakis contacted me I really hadn’t had any experience with this kind of exhibition. But I found Vassilis to be so inspirational, so talented and full of energy and ideas that he made things so easy. And, of course, he had curated one of the best, if not THE best, fashion/costume show I’d ever seen. It was great working with the team from Issey Miyake and, of course, the installation was magnificent, really inspirational.
FilepMotwary:Your life is a journey through your camera. Do you feel that you have achieved the goals you had for yourself so far? What was the aim behind all this magnificent journey you made, in a personal point of view?
JackieNickerson:I think photography is a great tool for looking at everything that goes on around you. I feel like I’ve really just begun to understand what it is I’m looking at and what it is I really want to say. That started with FARM. I just follow what goes on in my life and don’t feel any pressure to produce a coherent body of work that all fits neatly together like a slick package. I just try to see what’s actually in front of me – both on the outside and the inside, and be honest about what that reality is.
FilepMotwary:Have you ever been accused for your work?
JackieNickerson: I’ve had mostly very positive reviews of my work and of course I’m happy about that. I did get one negative review that accused me of not speaking about what a hero Robert Mugabe is and they thought the pictures were superficial. Of course, they’re wrong. But having your work attacked is still very difficult to deal with.
FilepMotwary: Can you share with us your future plans?
JackieNickerson:‘Faith’ is being published in October and we’ll have an exhibition at the Jack Shainman Gallery in New York opening on the 18th October. I’ll also be signing copies of Faith on the 15th November at Paris Photo. And I’m working on a new project, which I hope will be completed next year.
FilepMotwary: Thank you Jackie for the great honor.
Note: Copyrights of this interview belong to Un nouVeau iDEAL by Filep Motwary.
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