Interdisciplinary Practices: Photography and Writing - Part 2
Agnese Carbone, Felix Pilgrim & Rafael V.
April 12th, 2023
By Fiammetta Duke @fiammettaduke
Is an image more powerful when paired with words—and vice versa—or does it lose its essence? Or rather, does it gain a different dimension? Part 2 of artist and writer Fiammetta Duke’s conversations with artists about artworks where photography meet text.
Nightcrawler's diary, Entry Four, Cost Of Creating Crisis, Rafael V.
Fiammetta Duke: Did something in particular make you start playing with the relationship of text and image?
Agnese Carbone: I have been making ‘quadernini’ [notebooks] since I was 15, back then, I linked my drawings to writings. I didn't know how to draw, so when I started using my photos instead, that was the turning point—I could finally symbolise my feelings, and really be satisfied by the visual result.
Felix Pilgrim: In May 2021 I enrolled in a course at Photofusion, it’s a free course taught by Max Ferguson and Jasmine Bell, we learned about different forms of photography—portraiture, still life, collage, etc.—and worked towards a project.
Here I got introduced to the work of Marie Smith and her series Whispering For Help—black and white photos of women in parks paired with their handwriting, talking about their mental health struggles. I had this idea of using Grindr to take portraits of people.
I am also a huge fan of the Hoxton Mini Press books. I had never studied photography before and I knew that there were these beautiful photography books with text and images and a snippet of the person's voice and I just thought the way to make a series was to do that.
Benedict, Hosts, Felix Pilgrim
Rafael V.: Movies are my driving force. To me, my collages are movie posters. I was taking photos at parties and the more I was taking, the more I saw them as a narrative. I started transcribing conversations and including them in my collages. And then they just began to take a shape of their own. And then naturally my poetry became more involved.
So it’s not just photos of people, it's photos of people with information. I think the more you create, the more your voice starts bubbling, starts creeping its way into different forms of expression. For me, it was just about the voice. I'm firmly positioned now as the observer, and I am telling you I’m the observer.
Nightcrawler's diary, Entry Five, Solitary Observation, Rafael V.
Nightcrawler's diary, Entry Six, An Introduction to 'Scenery', Rafael V.
FD: I think it is so interesting how you can see something that inspires you, and it steers you into a certain direction, in this case pairing word and image.
FP: It’s even more amazing when the writing is coming from the mouth or the mind of the person within the image—then that means that the image speaks essentially.
FD: Do you think that helps in the interpretation of your portraits?
FP: I am aware that as a photographer there will always be things about the subject that I am unable to represent, there is always that limit, so I view the text as their self-portrait of themselves. Having said this, I do think there are certain portraits that don’t need words and are stronger without words. The more direct the gaze, the expression on the face says all that needs to be said sometimes.
Untitled, Agnese Carbone (aka Agnemag)
FD: Agnese, in your notebooks what is the relationship between photos and texts?
AC: In my opinion, a text gives much more power to a photo, when a text and an image work together it feels like I finally crystallised a feeling. Adding text to an image is putting your own interpretation on it, one of the possibilities that that photo can be. It’s like music in movie scenes, if you see a landscape with music it's one thing, if you see it without it's another. A photo with text next to it represents what I feel. My writing is very much image-based—my mind in general works that way, so I associate writing and photography because they are both images in my head, when I write I don’t use metaphors, I go for more concrete images.
FD: I am interested in why some images get lost without a text, or why it can be intimidating to see a text by itself, while with an image you can place it better.
AC: It’s just a question of mental collocation in my opinion. A way to give context, things change a lot when you see them in the middle of a context instead of from the outside.
FD: In that context, Rafael, How do you see your collages?
RV: They are layers of information. I see layers in people too. It just depends on how much you want to turn the microscope. And you access these layers through conversation. When I'm talking about layers all I'm talking about is humanity, some type of understanding of humanity.
Candance, Hosts, Felix Pilgrim
FD: Felix, The words paired to your images are not your own words but someone else’s—do you consider yourself an interdisciplinary artist by playing with words and images in this sort of manner?
FP: It is quite funny because my brother is more of a visual artist, and I can’t help to listen to his advice so I’ve always had to wrestle with this voice in my head saying no, text and image are just as important as each other in this series, and they must be presented alongside each other. With that in mind, I’m probably more of an interdisciplinary artist, because if I was to present just the writing on its own, it would not be as strong as the two presented side by side. For my MA at the moment, I am starting to work on a film about my family’s house that will use moving image with audio so it will again be an interdisciplinary approach
FD: What about you Raphael and Agnese, Do you consider yourselves interdisciplinary artists?
RV: I just consider myself more of a storyteller, that’s it. Photography is just my medium.
AC: I don't like to define myself as an artist, let alone interdisciplinary, I can accept being defined as a photographer but I am not a writer, If I have to give myself a definition I am a photographer and a musician.
For me, they are just all things that come out of me [text, images, songs] I don't see them as a triangle. My texts don't affect my photos and my photos don't affect my texts. My notebooks are not my final work, they are my personal outlet.
Nightcrawler's diary, Entry Four, Cost Of Creating Crisis, Rafael V.
About Agnese Carbone
Agnese Magda Carbone, aka Agnemag, is a twenty-three-year-old photographer and musician from Milan. Graduated in Education Sciences and subsequently graduated from Bauer in photography, her images want to tell the whole emotional spectrum linked to the structural conditions of existing, in a continuous exchange with the Other.
In 2021 she published her first book, Sbava Piangi Ama, with SelfSelf Books. In 2022 she was commissioned to work for the special edition of Style Magazine: The Future Seen From Milan. Among the fields of investigation of her photographic research, the musical one is very present, within which she creates covers, portraits, and visual content for artists of the independent scene.
About Felix Pilgrim
Felix Pilgrim (b. 1992, Bristol, UK) is a photographer based in London. His work explores portraiture, performance, and the queer experience. Felix's work is influenced by his background in theatre-making and his experience growing up in a religious household. In 2022, his series Hosts won British Vogue's Future Visionaries competition and was shortlisted for the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize.
Felix is currently studying for an MA in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography at the London College of Communication.
About Rafael V.
Rafael V. is a photographer and creative director, born and bred in south London. He tells stories and investigates the essence of humanity through his collages. His series Nightcrawler’s Diary acts as a voice for his findings, discovered as an observer. It allows him to analyse and dissect elements of humanity whilst still presenting his imagery.