Collabor/action

Maroussia Prignot and Valerio Alvarez are a great source of inspiration for my work in regard to collaboration. On their “Here, waiting” project, they partnered with a reception center for asylum seekers in Belgium.

After taking all pictures of the people living there, they would invite each person to intervene on their printed portraits with marker pens or pastels giving them the chance to own their images on a deeper level and express their feelings on very personal ways.

The final results were beautiful, artistic, and full of meaning displaying their underlying issues of exile, waiting and identity. Refugees and asylum seekers are always displayed in their suffering and escape in very undermining ways that hurt the subjects’ feelings and also create a long distance to most viewers.

Through the collaboration, Prignot and Alvarez connected the subjects with their portraits and final images and also diminished the distance with the viewers without losing the impact of the stories behind. It humanized all the process, and it was still very impactful.

My current research takes a lot in consideration collaboration and its effects.

As I want to share the stories of refugees still living in the Middle East I hope I can generate the same proximity and ownership with my subjects as well impact on the viewers.