Watch this video of a talk Elina Brotherus gave about her work to OCA students on the student website:http://weareoca.com/photography/elina-brotherus-student-talk/

Review

This video highlighted a couple of points for me around how Brotherus, an artist we first encountered in Context and Narrative, approaches her portraiture work. We know from the course notes that her series Suites Française was a documentary about her arriving in France without being able to speak the language and that her chosen process was to use Post-It notes as a learning aid. What I hadn’t realised was the use of film photography introduce the element of ‘random success’ when it came to Brotherus’s placement of herself in the image. For example, she highlights in the video that the placement of the post-it with Le Reflet (mirror) written on it was more luck than judgement. The way that the note covers her face is perhaps the strongest element in the image, even though the composition was intentionally representing the sense of isolation from the artist’s environment and language. Brotherus uses herself as the alien figure in the photograph and blends that emotion with the stark reality of the bathroom. The reason this was significant was that Brotherus made the point that she believed it to be better to work than overthink the idea. She suggested that the curation of a piece of work can be better achieved in review when the photographs are being selected and edited. Indeed, the Suites Française work was revisited many years later and culminated in the series 12 Ans Apres. As the title suggests, the series was revisited 12 years later when Brotherus returned to the location of her artist residency in France. The updated series now reflects on how different Brotherus’ life is in the same context as before. The labels have either been replaced by lengthy narratives in French or completely removed as in the case below.

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In the later version of Le Reflet, we see the same bathroom from a different perspective that shows a small area of the bedroom beyond the doorway. The sink is almost identical with the exception of the plumbing and taps and Brotherus is leaning against the same wall but this time looking at her reflection in the mirror. While there are many interpretations of these two images, Brotherus mentioned that she saw this work as a reflection of where she is now as a person against how she was when the original series. She went on to read one of the new Post-It notes that now contained what she calls a ‘position statement’. The statement reflected on how her life has turned out, both in terms of expectations that she met and things that didn’t go as expected. From what we know about Brotherus’ intervening work about her problems trying to have a family and her health issues that followed, this was a poignant statement that she made. Including it in the series as text further emphasises the mirror of her experiences. Later in the Q&A, she talked about using herself in landscape and the way that she wanted to invite the viewer to join her in appreciating the space. That shared experience is another example of the use of ‘mirror’ rather than a simple representation of what is present in the scene.

Conclusion

I enjoyed the video as it revealed these points that I had not really appreciated until recently. The act of shooting around an idea and being concerned with the way the series comes together afterwards is perhaps at odds with what we would expect. The idea of writing a position statement to establish what life is like in the present moment could be a useful tool when working on a series about myself. Assignment 3 may be a mirror so I will be looking into using it there. I’ve admired Brotherus’ work since we were introduced to her in the previous course, so listening to her talk about her creative process and using herself in the photographs is inspiring me to consider mirror as my answer to the brief for the next assignment.

References

[1] Brotherus E, 2015, “12 Ans Aprés”, Image Resource, Artist Website, http://www.elinabrotherus.com/photography#/12-ans-apres/