An Act of Resistance

Raised in Macau, award-winning Portuguese photographer Edgar Martins uses his photography to challenge the way we view our realities

 

 

My first passion was the written word as I was studying Literature and Philosophy in Macau in the late 90s. At the age of 18, I wrote and self-published a book of poetry and essays. It was structured as a bio-poetic novel, organised in three distinct chapters: poetry, poetic prose and philosophical essays.  I’m still fond of the title: Mãe, Deixa-Me Fazer o Pino (Mum, Let Me Do a Handstand). This book was very much inspired on beat poetry and on the existentialist de-ambulations of Fernando Pessoa, particularly The Book of Disquiet. I realised when I finished it that so much of my writing was incredibly visual. This prompted my exploration of visual arts and photography in particular.

 

It’s been a long time since I have shot in Macau. But with Macau being a city of contrasts, it awakened my critical eye at a young age. I enjoyed losing myself in the city, and discovering the nooks and crannies through the lens.

 

I’ve always had a particularly recalcitrant relationship with photography. When I started I was excited by photography’s ability to document the world in excess detail, it’s technicality and its documentary potential captured me. Paradoxically, what motivates me now are its failings, it’s insufficiencies. I’m interested in figuring out what it means for the medium when it’s no longer a mnemonic or record keeping device, a gateway to the sublime. For so long, photography has been defined by a relationship with the subject it purports to represent. So I’m interested in seeking answers to questions such as: What is left when photography is no longer a shutter based art of time or a lens based art of space? What does it mean for photography if it doesn’t identify with its subject (the referent) but its absence? (I’m interested in the ontology of absence). How do we, as visual practitioners, address the politics of visibility in an era that privileges transparency, yet is skeptical of facts?  I think some of these ideas bear great significance for contemporary photographic practices and for documentary forms. 

 

I have grown increasingly convinced of the fact that photography has reached a singularity of sorts. Image making has become inextricably aligned to Technocapitalist doctrine: it is all about constant upgrading and optimisation (the latest lens, the latest camera, the latest app, the latest operating system), to the detriment of the creative process.  I believe this has been responsible for steadily exacerbating a well-known neurological phenomenon that occurs with an abundance of choice: when people are overwhelmed by choice, they choose nothing in the end.
 For better or worse, this pandemic has introduced circumstantial constraints to our decision-making. It has shown artists and photographers they don’t need the latest gear to create. Although I have only ever worked with one (analog) camera and lens, I have embraced these constraints nonetheless, and used them to redefine my relationship with the medium. 

 

 

Photography is ubiquitous. Professional photography has an increasingly difficult role because of the rise of amateur photography and social media platforms, which are challenging the role of the professional as the purveyor of truth and visual content. But I do not believe the influence of amateur photography is necessarily a bad thing. In fact I welcome it. I no longer trust the agency of the professional photographer.

 

Take the example of war photography.  I have never held a great deal of faith in photography’s powers of testimony in these ethically charged contexts, particularly by professional photojournalists. Photographs of horror, violence and trauma raise a disconcerting paradox: they contribute to intensifying a traumatic awareness of death, but at the same time have a pacifying effect, allowing for a distanced and cold discernment that inevitably alleviates the extent of the trauma. The image, I believe, protects us from tragic reality.

 

However, I have come to believe that there is a place for photography in these kinds of environments. The point at issue is what role should it play and how should it operate? How do we represent and communicate “unimaginable” tragedy?  How can photographs reveal and resist at the same time? 

I believe that photographs of horror and violence should be unvarnished, unaesthetic, unpolished. I believe that all photographs taken in conflict and war settings should be a zero sum game, produced by those that have everything to lose and nothing to gain.

 

I believe in photographs as an act of resistance. I believe in the agency of the citizen, the agency of the oppressed, the agency of the freedom fighter.  I do not believe, however, in the agency of the professional photojournalist or news organization.

 

The project I am currently working on comprises a collaboration between the Archive of Modern Conflict, Human Wrights Watch, and other NGOS, as well as and various industry professionals (sound and AV engineers, authors etc) to examine the death and disappearance of my good friend and South African photojournalist Anton Hammerl during the Libyan war in 2011. This project will lead to new work that examines the paradoxical role that photography has played in conflict zones. My goal is to develop a visual lexicon that can be used as a representational and pedagogic tool to interrogate and document conflict, as well as the spectacle of photojournalism.

 

As far as exhibition projects, I am currently working on a worldwide tour of my last series, a project entitled: What Photography has in Common with an Empty Vase. This is a multifaceted body of work developed from a collaboration with Grain Projects  and HM Prison Birmingham, its inmates, their families, as well as a myriad of other local organisations and individuals. Using the social context of incarceration as a starting point, I explore the philosophical concept of absence, and address a broader consideration of the status of the photograph when questions of visibility, ethics, aesthetics and documentation intersect.  By giving a voice to inmates and their families and addressing prison as a set of social relations rather than a mere physical space, the work proposes to rethink and counter the sort of imagery normally associated with incarceration. 

 

The project thus wilfully circumvents images whose sole purpose, I believe, is to confirm the already held opinions within dominant ideology about crime and punishment: violence, drugs, criminality, race – my work deliberates on the issue of prison and incarceration without physically portraying the subject it represents (I went to great lengths to avoid shooting inside the prison or its inmates). 

 

 

In terms of the research and development of my new project, the impact has been negligible, but in terms of the production of new photographic work and the dissemination of finished projects, it has been totally disastrous. All the exhibitions I had planned for this year have been postponed by at least one year. Many other public led projects and events such as book launches, symposia, participations in fairs, etc. have all been cancelled.

 

But the project that I feel has been most impacted is an exhibition that I was due to present at the Macau Museum of Art in July this year. I had been in dialogue with the curators of the museum about this show for over two years, but alas because of the closure of Macau’s borders and the various restrictions and uncertainties the pandemic has created, the museum was forced to suspend much of its programming, including my exhibition.

 

This would have been my first exhibition in Macau since 1999, and the first time I would have presented an award-winning and thought-provoking project in the territory. For me it was a homecoming of sorts. This exhibition was also due to tour other institutions in China, but this tour is also on hold right now. I remain hopeful, however, that ICM and MAM will re-include this exhibition in their programming in the future.