How can documentary photography help create awareness or help us understand certain environments, communities, cultures or even the medium itself?
We take a look at projects by three artists that explore how photography can create artistic portrayels of social societies. Myriam Boulos (LB), a 2022 Foam Talent, shows a series of portraits of friends and strangers that have been affected by the blast and economy in Beirut. Rahim Fortune (US) uses documentary photography to ask fundamental questions about American identity. Lastly, Bieke Depoorter (BE) explores the complexities of the photographic enterprise, grappling with the relationship between photographer and subject.
The three artists are featured in the online talk . For many photographers today, working on commissions and assignments within the media industry helps to build and contribute to a sustainable career. How can an artist navigate the territory between their own practice and the media industry at large?
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Myriam Boulos
Tell the Trees to Smile
From the series Tell The Trees To Smile © Myriam Boulos
Documenting the emotions of broken people, buildings and objects, Tell the Trees to Smile is a series of portraits of friends and strangers from all walks of life who have collectively been affected by the blast and ongoing economic problems in Beirut. Entering into dialogue with her subjects, Boulos captions the images with their words, which represent their responses to the blast. These responses greatly differ - some people look directly into the camera, and some resume activities which range from prayer to protest, each signalling their own postures of strength, shock and solidarity.
-Róisín Tapponi, Foam Magazine #61: Talent
From the series Tell The Trees To Smile © Myriam Boulos
From the series Tell The Trees To Smile © Myriam Boulos
From the series Tell The Trees To Smile © Myriam Boulos
From the series Tell The Trees To Smile © Myriam Boulos
From the series Tell The Trees To Smile © Myriam Boulos
Myriam Boulos was born in 1992 in Lebanon. At the age of 16 she started using her camera to question Beirut, its people, and her place among them. She graduated with a master degree in photography from Alba in 2015. Boulos took part in both national and international collective exhibitions, including “Infinite Identities” (Amsterdam), 3ème biennale des photographes du monde arabe (Paris), and “C’est Beyrouth” (Paris).
Today she uses photography to explore, defy and resist society. In 2021 Boulos was named as a Foam Talent, joined Magnum Photos and was awarded the Grand Prix ISEM, and the second prize of PhMuseum Women’s Grant.
Rahim Fortune
I can’t stand to see you cry
I can’t stand to see you cry © Rahim Fortune
Rahim Fortune uses photography to ask fundamental questions about American identity. Focusing on the narratives of individual families and communities, he explores shifting geographies of migration and resettlement, and the way that these histories are written on the landscapes of Texas and the American South.
I can’t stand to see you cry © Rahim Fortune
I can’t stand to see you cry © Rahim Fortune
I can’t stand to see you cry © Rahim Fortune
I can’t stand to see you cry © Rahim Fortune
I can’t stand to see you cry © Rahim Fortune
Fortune (b.1994) is part of a new generation of photographers who are reclaiming America’s photographic history, uncovering the ways that racial injustice has acted in the past and the present to shape American visual identity. Both his editorial and his fashion work are rooted in classical social documentary photography, but he approaches this genre from a fresh perspective, pushing against some of its prevailing conventions. In place of images that spectacularise poverty and marginalisation amongst minority communities, Fortune incorporates elements of the vernacular in his practice in order to show the everyday lives of underrepresented individuals and groups.
Bieke Depoorter
Agata
Agata, Paris, France, November 2, 2017 © Bieke Depoorter . Magnum Photos
In the recently self-published book Agata, Bieke Depoorter explores the complexities of the photographic enterprise, grappling with the relationship between photographer and subject. By diving deep into a collaborative working dynamic with Agata Kay, a Polish woman she met in a strip club in Paris, she creates a small alternate universe that served as a container for them to explore questions they each had regarding identity, performance and representation.
Agata, Paris, France, November 2, 2017 © Bieke Depoorter . Magnum Photos
Agata, Germaine, Neuilly-Plaissance, France, September 4, 2018 © Bieke Depoorter . Magnum Photos
Agata, Paris, France, November 12, 2017 © Bieke Depoorter . Magnum Photos
Agata, Beirut, Lebanon, August 3, 2018 © Bieke Depoorter . Magnum Photos
Bieke & Agata, Lebanon, August, 2018 © Photo by Agata Kay
Bieke Depoorter received a master’s degree in photography at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent in 2009. Three years later, at 25 years old, she was made a nominee of the photo cooperative Magnum Photos, where she was named a full member in 2016.
Depoorter has won several awards and honors, including the Magnum Expression Award, The Larry Sultan award and the Prix Levallois. She has published five books: Agata, Ou Menya, I am About to Call it a Day, As it May Be, and Sète#15. She worked together with Aperture, Editions Xavier Barral, Edition Patrick Frey, Lannoo, Hannibal, and Le bec en l’air to publish these books. This year, Depoorter started her own publishing platform ‘Des Palais’, together with Tom Callemin.
