Malparaíso
Juan Miguel Ramirez-Suassi is a Madrid-based photographer who was born in Mallorca, Spain. In this interview, we discuss his recent photo book Malparaíso, published by Setanta Books. Juan Miguel introduces us to the role painting plays in his photographic practice, from his decision to shift his career to photography to the prevalence of references to painting in landscapes and portraiture. The almost lyrical approach to his surroundings creates a memorable experience
of immersion into the visual, the carefully selected scenes, the positioning of each element in the frame, and the feeling of depth and space. Juan Miguel describes the importance of creating a focal point in his work, “The lack of depth of field in some portraits gives the scene an unreal, dematerialised quality. It is a selective approach so that by placing the focal point of the composition on the figures, the characters seem to remain on the surface of their surroundings.”
In Malparaíso: The Wanderer & The Southern Star, the travel to Chile and Mexico during 2015 - 2022 is depicted through the representation of the duality of the search for Paradise and the exploration of the distant part of the world to a European person, an encounter with the human experience ranging from melancholy to hope. JM describes the process, “The concept, idea in photography, is dangerous because it can deactivate the emotional tension that through the images should connect the creator with the spectator.” The process integrates work with an archive, carefully selected fragments, and the formation of memories integrated into one coherent narrative to create a dialogue with the viewer.
Photography by JM Ramírez-Suassi Design by Vicky Heredero Printed by 1010 Printing International Ltd. Published by Setanta Book Special thanks to Alex Buchan
Publication Details
Clothbound hardback
300 x 240 mm
160 pages
81 images
‘I come from the world of painting. Moving from painting to photography was not an overnight process.’
Photography
Hi JM, it’s so lovely to meet and congratulations on publishing your monograph Malparaíso in collaboration with Setanta Books! Could you tell about yourself and what led you to choose photography as a career?
Hello! Thank you very much... Maybe I should start at the beginning and say that I come from the world of painting. Moving from painting to photography was not an overnight process; photography was gradually introduced into my paintings until, one day, painting disappeared completely. That was more than twenty-five years ago. But painting is something that still interests me, not to take up the brushes again, not in that sense, but because photography and painting, art in general, have that intensity and, at the same time, the subtlety to penetrate our eyes.
In an interview, Bergman said that film was like music, that both sides stepped the intellect and went straight to the feelings. I don't know why Bergman reduced this only to film and music. Photography and painting also have that quality. In Malparaíso, you can see references to painting: a landscape peeling in the sun, perhaps as a harbinger of an uncertain future, in a desert landscape a man is painting in the middle of the train tracks, a ruined house in the desert where a poster of an Andean landscape still hangs on one of its walls, a homeless man with the Gioconda tattooed on his belly, a poster of a policeman strangling a Mapuche Indian. As you can see, painting is something that is still present, in fact, there was already some reference to it in my first monograph, One Eyed Ulysses. You could say that I had to start painting to become a photographer. Photography does not change. It continues to construct images as if they were seen through a window, following the classical tradition of painting.
‘ I let myself be carried along by circumstances, intuition, and chance. I am not looking for anything specific. I don't have a goal, and if I do, it's the road to that place that builds the encounters.’
Malparaíso
Malparaíso holds a concept of duality, presenting the world of paradise, an ultimate utopia forever lost, intertwined in the reality of a range of experiences from grief and melancholy to the more positive ones. You decided to embark on a journey in Chile and Mexico during 2015 - 2022 to explore this dualism in humanity in the distant parts of the world (to a person living in Europe). What was the Malparaíso you discovered, and how different or similar it was to the one you imagined to find?
The subtitle of the book is The Wanderer & The Southern Star. This subtitle is no accident. For someone who lives in Europe and wants to see that star, it implies a change of hemisphere. That is already an incitement to travel and to wander. During my travels, I let myself be carried along by circumstances, intuition, and chance. I am not looking for anything specific. I don't have a goal, and if I do, it's the road to that place that builds the encounters. I haven't travelled to Chile several times thinking: I'm going to do a book called Malparaíso. No, that's not how it works for me. It's only later, at home, looking through the archives of my trips and notebooks, that I think something interesting could come out of it... Malparaíso is an imaginary place, a kind of Macondo where everything is possible. And in a place where everything is possible, dualities are the order of the day: cold and heat, solitude and company, countryside and city, open and closed space, entertainment and boredom, travel and sedentary life. Nor is it a coincidence that Malparaíso and Macondo begin with the same syllables...
In Chile, Mexico, and South America in general, "the marvellous real, the imaginary real" still abounds... Photography today is leaving behind the express idea of the document without abandoning its interest in the real. This photography, which is called post-documentary, incorporates fiction. It can invent, imagine, and speculate, but always starting from or returning to reality. Classical documentary photography aims to generate an awareness of certain circumstances, while post-documentary photography keeps them open to explore. When we refer to 'reality' we must take into account its polyvalent existence. And post-documentary photography has that mestizo character that makes it the ideal way to assimilate the substantial ambiguity of the world... But I must tell you that I am not very fond of concepts and ideas. That's why there are no texts in my books. The only text that appears in Malparaíso, and not that it is a text either, is the list of titles of the photographs, which someone knowledgeable or fond of jazz will soon discover that they are titles of jazz compositions. The concept, idea in photography, is dangerous because it can deactivate the emotional tension that through the images should connect the creator with the spectator.
‘I always look for the marginal. My field of vision has always been the periphery. I wander through these places with the same respect as I would through the halls of a museum.’
The Theme
The main themes you explore deal with melancholia, loneliness but also relationships, and the creation of the world and the surroundings by people. We see portraits of subjects and landscapes that create a sense of loneliness, while there are images of people together or subjects immersed in a certain work or creation process. One of the images that, in my opinion, connects the dots of this duality depicted in the monograph is a hole formed in the rocks through which the light rains down below the ground, filling the physical and mental space with hope and a sense of continuity into a possibly better future. What were the central images that you made throughout the journey that stand as symbolic to the project?
There is, for me at least, no image that is more symbolic than any other and that stands out above the rest. Somehow, they are all connected and coexist to form something called Malparaíso. The image you mention is accompanied by another image, a staircase that leads to nowhere. In fact, I climbed that staircase, and on the other side, there was nothing, a deserted plain. The memories do not form a linear vision but are concentrated or folded into a single image that contains the temporal tension and manifests it as a vibration of the memory image. The photographs of Malparaíso aspire to this tension and vibration... I always look for the marginal. My field of vision has always been the periphery. I wander through these places with the same respect as I would through the halls of a museum. Faced with the significant and the transcendent, I prefer to discover the insignificant, the circumstantial, or rather, that which lacks transcendent meanings but nevertheless possesses visual and plastic qualities.
‘My intention was to create a book based on the so-called aesthetics of hunger and not conditioned by any kind of colonialist sentiment.’
The Experience and Print
When working on the printed edition and going through all the images you gathered during the seven years of working on the project, what was important for you or how did you decide to create a narrative, combining black and white and color images, landscapes, and portraits to form the story of Malparaíso?
My intention was to create a book based on the so-called aesthetics of hunger and not conditioned by any kind of colonialist sentiment. Malparaíso had to be a place close to the modern city but in an inhospitable geography, the one that surrounds every metropolis. In short, I wanted to sketch the territories I had been exploring. I also wanted to evoke a sense of timelessness, and black and white helped me in that respect. I normally work in colour, except for large format, but I am not a colourist; you will not see primary colours in my photographs, only secondary and tertiary colours. The colour photographs in the book all have the same tonality. This was one more way of 'impoverishing' the context and making the black and white images form a spider's web with the colour ones... As for the characters, they appear already at a certain distance or far away or portrayed very close up, you won't see full-length portraits in my photographs. The lack of depth of field in some portraits gives the scene an unreal, dematerialised quality. It is a selective approach so that by placing the focal point of the composition on the figures, the characters seem to remain on the surface of their surroundings. And the same happens with the landscape, it appears in all its splendour or just some insignificant element of it... Another thing I wanted to highlight, and no less important, is the archive. You could say that working with the archive is like the archaeological process of reconstruction: you select fragments for a greater totality. In Malparaíso, many things appear cut up, cut out, fragmented, and cut in half. Because what is photography, after all, if not a fragment?
