Interview with VASSILIS TRIANTIS
The series 1 1/2 Life by Vassilis Triantis (b. 1975, Greece) was created during the lockdown in Amsterdam, caused by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using his background in Medical Biology and an incredible eye for details and light, Triantis approaches the topic from multiple positions. His photographs talk about the science behind the virus as well as the social, economic, and political consequences we all experienced during the past few months.
In 2017 Vassilis Triantis was one of the selected GUP New Dutch Talents. His appearance in the book brought him national and international recognition. His work is now part of Futures - a photography platform focused on amplifying emerging photography talents.
Your project is called 1 1/2 Life. Could you talk about the title and how it came to be?
The project started as an escape from the pandemic gloom and slowly evolved into a personal, visual diary of life in confinement. I was recording personal thoughts, regarding surveillance, human identity, our biological insignificance and the irony of how a minuscule biological entity - with no individual living traits of its own - all of a sudden came to govern how societies function and interact worldwide.
The title 1 1/2 Life concluded all of those thoughts. The combination of human life with a virus that has no life on its own. A shift away from the anthropocentric individualism to something more plural and democratic. The enforced measures of one and a half meters of social distancing that enhanced the need and desire for the plural. The fact that for many, life in isolation was cut in half. All of that resulted in the title, reflecting how our lives changed due to the pandemic.
Your photographs carry a strong visual aesthetic and mood. Why did you decide to shoot on film and in black & white?
I wanted to avoid interference of colour and keep a minimal and simple language throughout the series. The use of colour may have contributed to a certain aesthetic but would not be a meaningful addition to the whole discourse. Additionally, when shaping the project, I realised that the series would come out to be quite diverse in terms of images. The absence of colour, visually binds the photographs together.
As for the use of film instead of digital, I had a strong need to move away from the digital. The moment the whole world turned towards it, I felt like doing the exact opposite; slowing down and absorbing what was going on around me. To be honest with you, I have been shooting exclusively in analogue for the past years. Despite living in a time where digital prevails, film gives me the opportunity to make my work more tangible and more human. I take the time to dive into it, I am more conscious of the moment, embracing all the imperfections that go along with film photography.
Your photographic essay is divided into eight chapters. What does each of the parts entail?
Each chapter is dealing with one aspect of the pandemic. One of them being the scientific aspect; how the virus transmits, how it is detected, confined and studied. Another one, Oikeios/Xenos is addressing the interplay between personal and public space in times of confinement. Allotriosis records my own transformation due to the absence of human contact and the aggravation of mental illness while living in a virtual realm. A new currency, Do you get the bigger picture, Apolis and The brand of Immunity all address the social and financial consequences of the pandemic.
While the world was revolving around COVID-19 pandemic, other things went unnoticed; amongst others the plans for the annexation of the West Bank and the fights for civil rights in Hong Kong. Exodus is a short essay on how we walk out of this crisis, what do we take from this experience and how do we rebuild our connections in a post-pandemic reality?
The collection includes amongst others, photographs of hand-crafted sculptures, material experiments as well as human body captured both indoors and outside. What brings them all together? How important is the aspect of time?
I love the question, because in my mind the series is a photographical one. So all the installations, or performative actions were used primarily as photographic objects. But indeed, as you mentioned, the work is more than just the images. The body, objects, installations, each exists in an altered state in the photographic moment. All the experiments are extremely ephemeral in their non-photographical state. The toilet paper will eventually melt away, the liquids will totally mix together, the human body itself changes by each passing second. However when photographed, the toilet paper becomes a virus, the body transforms from a restricted state to a symbol of freedom, the mixing of liquids represent a biological procedure. Everything that was photographed turns into a symbol of something more durable. So I guess it is their non-ephemeral symbolism that brings them all together.
Even though the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic is more or less under control, the future is still very much unpredictable. In line with that, how do you imagine the project to evolve?
I promised myself to stop photographing once the isolation measures in Amsterdam were reduced. But, although the project has been concluded in the form I envisioned it, I realised that the whole situation is far from being over. Now, there are many repercussions that need to be discussed; amongst other the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and the financial crisis. The reactions the pandemic triggered or facilitated and how they are all connected, is definitely something that interest me as well. In 1 1/2 Life I started building comparisons between a pre and post pandemic reality. I want to expand on these narratives but not necessarily within the same project. The way in which biological and social systems work is very similar and photography is a great tool to portray that.
