What inspired you to get into the arts, photography and illustration?

I’ve always been interested in photography but at first, I didn’t consider it as a possible career, always using it as a hobby instead. I used to take a lot of pictures, especially while traveling, as a way to archive my life and keep memories intact. Growing in a very heteronormative family, very eager to see me succeed and go to the university, I lived their dreams before starting mine. By traveling abroad, especially in Taiwan, I got the chance to free myself from all the social, familial and societal boundaries I used to fear - it allowed me to find myself on an identity level. Then coming to Brussels, finding a queer family and being able to pursue my self-discovery journey, my artistic part kept growing and growing as well as my will to free myself from the life I had built under pressure. The first inspiration I had was seeing my new surrounding living their life the way they wanted, on their own terms.

But the ultimate turning point was the first lockdown due to the COVID19 crisis. I, then, used to work in a creative/media agency. Going through the crisis, experiencing the isolation and loneliness linked with this situation, I tried to stay busy by finding a way to cope with this anxious situation. That’s how analog photography found its way within my life. The COVID crisis put me in front of my unhappy situation with my work and life in general, making me rethink a lot about what I want to achieve for myself and how I could try to make things more meaningful.

 It became urgent for me to make a 360° turn and reinvent myself the way I wanted. I went back to studying, but going to an art school because my university degree would never give me the creative opportunities I aimed for.

 From the beginning, I naturally went to portrait photography, whether it is of people or objects. It came as obvious that photography would become for me a way to blossom, explore my relationship with my environment, with art but also a way to tell stories and develop a personal aesthetic.

 Film photography is a way for me to slow things down a little, taking pleasure to create without feeling the urge from the digital world, as well as deconstructing the perfectionist part of my personality. I’ve always liked to focus on the little joyful things my eyes were noticing and photography is a way to capture them and bring them into the material world, into physical memories.

What is your creative process and what are the most important things you keep in mind when beginning a new project?

Before the creative process, I love the manual and time-related process of analog photography: the uncertainty, the patience it requires and the satisfaction it brings when you get to see the end result. It brings out moments and memories you can cherish, material to work with that’s reflective of your skills and personal growth.

But before all, I consider photography as a way to create new narratives, to tell stories and to highlight social aspects of our society under a certain prism. As a queer person, I tend to naturally get interested in subjects as gender, identity, and their relationships with our society. I would like to question people’s physicality and personal experiences. It’s important for me to give a space for people to showcase themselves and share their self, their emotions, inner thoughts and personal universe. 

 But I also like to get into subjects related to sociology or anthropology, with an emphasis on aesthetics to discuss these topics through images instead of words.

What do you enjoy most about your craft?

The encounters I have the chance to make, the conversations and the sharing part that come with the photographic work. I also enjoy to share the beauty that my eyes see in our world even though it will always be very subjective. I like when things are not too blunt, when there is poetry in it and a soft part that makes you wonder for a moment, even if it’s for just a second. It’s satisfying when I have a vision, concept and get to fulfill it.

Did you have any influential role models ? If so, who?

I’ve always been inspired by oneiric photographers such as Tim Walker, Cho Gi-Seok, Franz Szony or Pierre et Gilles but also photographers who focus on depicting the reality, the world in its beautiful simplicity as Wolfgang Tillmans or Paul Kooiker.

 However, I do think that inspiration can come from every art practices, whether it’s sculpture as with Magnhild Kennedy, anthr0morph, James Merry; fashion as Margiela, Dion Lee, Iris van Herpen, Michaela Stark; make-up with Ryan Burke, Ines Alfa; drag with IsSheHungry or Violet Chachki or even music through Arca or Sevdaliza’s aesthetic. 

 To me, everything is inspiration and it always evolves with time and what you encounter, how you continually evolve and how your brain makes sense out of it.

What advice would you give to artists starting out or to those artists who are struggling with creative blocks?

I consider myself as a young artist in a « work in progress » phase, still trying to find my aesthetic, personal view and own approach of the medium of photography. I think this will all come with practice, experimentations and research. That may be the advice I’d give. To avoid creative blocks, I think it’s important to explore different media and try to reinvent your approach with them, thinking about what you want to say through your work so the process would come naturally.