I’m not the one on the front seat pushing the gas pedal all the way
Miguel Proença takes us on the trip to the past while also unveiling the curtain to the present. We meet people we would never encounter otherwise and learn about their land and what defines them. In this interview, we discuss in-depth two main research photo projects The Buzzer and Behind The Hill.
The Buzzer, shot between 2015-18 in the Baltic countries including Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland, turns to the question of the changing identity of the subject in the post-Soviet era, reminds of the historical questions the countries raise and offers a journey in time presenting archive footage along with the contemporary images of people and the land. Behind The Hill, an ongoing project, while still turning to the subject and raising existential yet relevant today questions, turns its focus to religion, rituals, and mystique ceremonies.
Miguel Proença is a Portuguese documentary photographer currently living and working in London. With the decision to study towards his Master’s degree in Documentary Photography, Miguel moved to Wales. Miguel was nominated for an HSBC Prix pour la Photographie in 2020; in 2019 was shortlisted for several awards, including MACK First Book Award, and was one of the artists chosen for inaugural The Photographers' Gallery New Talent (TNT) in 2019. His work is ongoing research on topics like identity, the juxtaposition of history and the present, and the place of the subject in the country they reside in.
From Porto to London
Hi Miguel, so nice to have you in our magazine! You’re currently located in London, which has a big scene of photographers from around the world. How did your decision to move to the UK come about?
Hello, thanks for the invitation. I didn’t move straight away to London. In 2017 I was granted a scholarship and moved from Porto to Wales to do a Master's in Documentary Photography. After completion, I ended up staying one more year living in Cardiff but still regularly going to London to visit exhibitions. And at a certain point, I had the possibility to move.
What do you enjoy the most in London?
London is one of the biggest metropolises in Europe and thus so culturally rich; you can find new things firsthand: great exhibitions, concerts, the premiere of indie films, and many bookshops. As you say, London is a big scene for many artists. It’s a shame that Brexit will have an effect on the multiculturalism and transnationalism that has been taking place over decades.
‘At the time with some colleagues, we got the ferryboat and went to visit Estonia, and that was when I had the first encounter with the issue of the changing identity of the post-Soviet space and its repercussions.’
The Buzzer
What drew your attention to decide and research the post-Soviet space and Baltic countries more specifically?
The idea to research the subject came about during a summer internship in Finland. At the time with some colleagues, we got the ferryboat and went to visit Estonia, and that was when I had the first encounter with the issue of the changing identity of the post-Soviet space and its repercussions. So years later, supported through a grant, I returned with resources to widen the area of fieldwork to all the Baltic states, including Latvia, Lithuania, and also northern Poland. The project was shot from 2015 till the end of 2018 on different occasions throughout the years. Following the research, I delineated a map with all the important dates and routes I would follow. During this period, I started to put together different materials: newspaper articles in which the antagonism between Russia and the West is persistent, even in some cases turning into a Dr. Strangelove kind of comedy; I also collected war survival manuals issued to instruct citizens on how to resist a foreseen invasion; The yearbooks of the security services, which give insight into the threats faced and crimes committed against the state by foreign actors.
The materials already conveyed an atmosphere of suspicion and uncertainty, but in addition, I had the chance to meet people with interesting archives, thus taking another layer into the project. The most peculiar one belonged to a guy named Igor, who scavenged for bricks in the vicinity for several years. And so, through his collection, we have a clear view of the cultural geography of the territory during different stages. Another guy with an antenna in his roof in Tallinn managed to record thousands of hours of radio transmissions from a Russian military outpost nicknamed Buzzer. This radio station across the border is entangled in mystery and speculation by western aficionados, so later, its nickname seemed appropriate to be chosen as the title for the project.
‘On one side, we have what is being dilapidated according to Western standards, but on the other, there’s an urge to restore and maintain past ideals through different forms.’
Tell about this conceptual juxtaposition of Black and White and color images in the book, the people now and then, and the atmosphere that was important to convey.
Although, was later that I understood the possibilities of including the research materials, such as the newspapers, interviews, radio transmissions, archival images, and videos gathered over time. So the black and white images came up due to their aesthetic and historical value. Being shot throughout several periods, the conceptual juxtaposition between colour and these archival images emphasises the friction between different realities. On one side, we have what is being dilapidated according to Western standards, but on the other, there’s an urge to restore and maintain past ideals through different forms. In a way, the narrative revolves around this ambiguity of what’s about to happen and the nostalgia of the past being fractured. Foremost, the archival pinpoints on divergences of the legitimacy of the history of the region. Russians often assert the myth of the old Russian land, but Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians, therefore, rightly argue they belong there for centuries. What the archival images and videos show, as well, is the process of acculturation over different periods. We see a border being re-established, statues being sculpted and later removed. But at the same time in colour, we see resistance buds across the landscape propelled in echo chambers, by conspiracy theories, or simply by nostalgia.
‘I’m not the one on the front seat pushing the gas pedal all the way; probably I would be on the backseat pondering the consequences of going so fast.’
The Individual
Throughout your different series, some elements recur and become the connectors between your works, such as the ordinary person, the natural landscape, the cemetery, faith. One of the questions raised is the connection between the past and the current state, although the feeling that is left is that nothing really changes. What draws you to research the individual?
The question you raise between the past and the feeling that nothing changes perhaps might be connected to the fact that I was raised in a lower-middle-class family. And during your path, you sometimes realise, unless you belong to a certain caste, you can feel the world spinning around without anything changing. You need to be optimistic and keep pushing yourself forward. In particular, in Portugal, being such a traditional country, faith and, concretely, the Church still have a considerable weight in society. Even so, I’m not directly interested in focusing my work on faith - it surfaced intertwined with other subjects.
When you are shy, you always feel comfortable not to be exposed, to be on the side. In photography, I feel a certain empathy for ordinary persons that also ramble like that. And I think we can find a similar logic while taking pictures of landscapes. I’m not the one on the front seat pushing the gas pedal all the way; probably I would be on the backseat pondering the consequences of going so fast. So I think at some point, these characteristics, plus the solitary practice of photography, draw me to these subject matters.
What are some of the main insights you discovered for yourself from shooting various people in different countries?
You don’t judge the book by its cover. Sometimes people look tough on the surface, but they are very fragile, and vice versa. It’s a kind of self-defense mechanism. A friend of mine once told me a story about her aunt. She was elderly and lived alone, and during family gatherings, to make herself noticed, she would throw herself to the carpet asking for help as if she had suddenly fallen. I think she belongs to the kind of people that need attention from others. Technology is making us more selfish each day. And so there’s also the kind that is aware of the screen and keeps on self-indulgence.
Katrina
Katrina - one of the characters from The Buzzer is also a photo you decided to exhibit at the Photovogue in Milan. What is the story behind this image?
On this day following the borderline between Estonia and Latvia, I stopped to visit the twin-cities of Valga (Estonia) and Valka (Latvia). Arrived in the morning, parked the car near a supermarket, and went for a walk to find nothing special. After lunch, I had an appointment in this vocational school, built with Norwegian funds and giving lessons in Estonian, Latvian, and Russian languages. We recorded an interview with the principal in his cabinet, and he ended by offering a visit to the premises. We entered a room with big skylights where students were preparing to draw objects; overhead Katrina there was very subtle light, so I asked permission and shot four or five frames.
How do you think people deconstruct her identity to the base traits from viewing the print?
Photography is very effective in organising types, but to expose the general it fails on the individual. Today, like in photography and the media, in general, this takes us to the debate of post-colonial societies, organised under the principle of altogether under the same flag ethos. Multiculturalism, in a way, offers a colourful picture but fails to give a stage to many of its unique cultures. In addition, about your question on deconstructing identity, the reason that I visited the school was that it gave me clues on how this post-Soviet identity is being shaped. Do we completely erase the past and change according to new ideals or mimicking them? Or do we restructure the past to educate future generations contributing to a more beyond-Eurocentric view? So I think this school offers a basic example of how to promote diversity or inclusiveness without compromising each of the student’s backgrounds.
What do you think might be missing to know in order to better understand the image?
To understand images, sometimes we need to be given their context. In Lithuania, while driving in a town near the Belarus border, from the rear-view mirror, I spotted a guy walking in a military parka. So thinking that he was returning from conscription, I turned around to talk to him. It turned out that he was studying music and was planning to move to the capital, Vilnius, soon as he finished school. About the jacket, he told me that it was bought cheap in a garage sale nearby. In a town, where so many people are employed by the border guard, there’s this guy, who has no relation to it but perhaps has subconsciously the symbols that led him to choose the military pattern overall. People look at the portrait and would take different assumptions. The caveat is that photography can’t describe everything. It forced me while editing the dummy to include transcriptions of the interviews to provide more context. Nevertheless, not deliberately, connecting the subject to the transcription, but giving a plenitude of voices without being directly descriptive.
Behind the Hill
For this series, you went to learn about healers, rituals, and mystique ceremonies. What was the acquaintance that left the biggest imprint on your memory?
Well, I had many great experiences while shooting for this project, but the one that left an imprint was with a guy I arranged to meet in the middle of nowhere. He arrived on a quad bike, taking with him inside his jacket a bubble-wrapped book. According to him, this old book covered in engraved leather was a compendium that belonged to a local healer during his active years. After his death, the book was disposed of in the bin but later found by a garbage man, who understood its value and sold it to the actual owner. So I was curious to look at it and take photographs, but since its owner was in a hurry, we agreed to find the nearest restaurant and ask to improvise a studio there. At the restaurant, to my surprise, there was a wedding reception going on. So, I ended by shooting this rare book while people were drunk, dancing around, and looking weird at me.
Next Steps
What project are you working on or planning as the next one?
In the remote highlands of northeastern Portugal, where Behind the Hill was shot, the poorest region, but also where the most preserved landscape is located, vast lithium reserves were found, already being considered Europe’s most important mines. Following the ever-growing demand for lithium-ion batteries to clean the planet, foreign mining companies were granted licenses to extract millions of tonnes per year. Thus requiring a sizable infrastructure to be built on site, resulting in a series of giant open-cut excavations. It’s an invasive process, permanently changing the natural habitats. I’m interested to follow the repercussions on the landscape and local communities over time.
Some time ago, I came across a picture of the millionth guest worker to arrive in postwar Germany; he was a Portuguese named Rodrigues. In the picture, we can see him well dressed, sitting on a shiny motorcycle holding a bouquet, surrounding him, there is a crowd dressed in suits, applauding to the camera. It’s a public relations photograph, it is the ideological construction of the generous nation, and the poor guest worker arrived to fulfil the nation’s economic needs. The emigrant represented hope and greatness, but over decades, this image is being mercilessly ridiculed and stereotyped across the spectrum. So, perhaps with this in mind, I would like to work around the definition of the guest worker throughout the archive, its identity mutations, and the cultural geography it has been to.
