Irene Zottola – Deconstructing the Human Figure and Exposing Fragility

Irene Zottola is a self-taught analogue photographer from Madrid. Her work has been selected in prestigious competitions in Europe such as PhotoEspaña and Les Photobook Awards of Les reencontres d'Arles 2022. Her work features a brilliant blend of mixed media: analogue photography, poetry, and audio visual creations.

We are delighted to speak to her in this interview, where she candidly talks about her work practice, the roots of her inspirations and the deep significance of self portraiture, through which she expresses the impalpable nature of the human soul.

Hi and welcome to Lomography Magazine! Tell us a bit about yourself and your background with photography.

My relationship with the image has always been accompanied by words. My father taught me to read with a children’s magazine. I remember his finger underlining the phrases and how he looked at those drawings carefully. In my house nobody has studied Fine Arts, but they love cinema and culture. At home there have always been paintings and books of painting and photography. My infantile imagination was composed of those images that populated the house: my mother’s village was a painting of Renoir, my father was Carlos Gardel, my mother was one of those conductors of the paintings of Tamara Lempicka, also Marylyn Monroe de Warholl. I integrated those works naturally into our lives.

The direct contact with photography came in the Faculty of Journalism. I did a black and white photography workshop and I remember that I fell in love with the process at the moment that I saw the image appear in the developer. I left school that same year and started studying a course of Professional Photography and then another of Creative Photography.

Mixed media is an integral part of your work. How do words and photography merge in your projects? Does one come before the other?

It goes a little in parallel. Poetry is images with words. Poems or texts that I read or write take me to images. Images that are born in the laboratory inspire me with words or phrases. It is quite organic, there is no concrete order. It depends on the work and the time of the process in each case, although in the final result I usually write on top of the image.

One of the last works I did was an exhibition and workshop in a youth prison. Most of them are North Africans. I could have exposed anything, but I looked for North African authors and poets who had also been in prison. I discover Mohammed Dib and his book of poems "El niño jazz". The title of the work and the foundation of the exhibition arose from one of his verses: The child to whom the tree came to close his eyes.

The exhibition consisted of a forest made with Japanese paper with different techniques (frames, chemograms and cyanotypes) in which I inserted the verses of the poets. It was a way to get closer to the people who were going to see the exhibition. Poetry is a key to the human approach, whether through the image or the word.

How do you balance your multimedia work with analogue photography? And what is your favorite medium to work with?

In the last year I have made two audiovisual pieces through photographs: MADRID MÍA and SUR. In the case of MADRID MÍA, it was a specific commission in which I paid tribute to Madrid, my hometown. In this case I made the photos first, then I wrote the text, and creating the sequence with rhythm and sounds came later. Let’s say it was the first audiovisual poem that I have made with photographs and text.

In the case of SUR, the idea of making an audiovisual piece came later. I had the images, in them there are several sequences of moments with different actions with my father. The movement was there, so ending up making an audiovisual piece was quite natural. In this case the ambient sound has been very important and adds tension to the work.
Although the origin of my works is the analogue and the foundation of my pieces are material and plastic.

I think it's important to experiment with other technological means to highlight what you want to tell, considering the format in which you will transmit it to the public. You will not do the same for a publication as for an exhibition, in each one you will use different means to help you get where you want.

Self portraiture is an important component of your work. Historically when the artist puts themselves in the frame there is a personal connection and an emotional weight to the work. What is your relationship with self-portraits?

Self portraiture is a quest. It is true that it plays an important role in my early work and experiments. In the end the body I had most at hand was my own. I went through a natural phase of searching for myself, of photographing myself in different spaces and situations and then continuing that experimentation in darkroom with different techniques.

In the end it is an act of presence and footprint. I think it requires courage to do so but also caution when it comes to giving your body and sharing. To quote Elliot Erwitt: Try to be serious without being too serious.

How does the use of your body relate to the space and story you want to tell?

Seeing a person implies seeing a body. The representation of that body is going to be loaded with signifiers. In my case I am interested in playing at a plasticity level with the destruction or disappearance of the image, transferring it to human fragility with respect to nature or matter. I’m interested in how that body image comes alive and moves through the materials.

In the series LO QUE QUEDA, the representation of my own image reflected my mood at the moment of a broken, disintegrated and fragmented love breakup. In NO ONE IS VISIBLE ON EARTH, the dance of a multiplicity of bodies is lost, almost disappearing on paper. I am interested in how the material can add meaning to the treatment of the image.

It is curious because although I have photographed my body for many years, I am not doing it in this last period. I think that in a natural way and also as a sign of evolution and maturity, I begin to be interested in others, in the bodies of others – something that also poses a challenge when photographing.

Your work spans across generations with your grandmother at the center of one of your projects. What is your relationship with the past and the future? And where is the role of the present?

My grandmother is my roots. She’s a person on a vital level of how to see life. I believe that in the identity of each one it is fundamental to recognize where you come from, who you are. My mother and father are two figures who are present in my last works in a direct or referential way.

Photography has that power to stop time and in this case, to somehow retain those people you love or who are important. The moment in which you take the photograph is present, but it automatically becomes past and yet it can always accompany you in the future (and when you look at it, it will be present). There is a temporary game with photography and the permanence of the image, that footprint and presence, memory, and oblivion.

I’m terrible at remembering names but I remember perfectly in what situations I took each photograph when I looked at it. I think it plays a very important role in the identity of each individual to be aware of where you come from (although sometimes we forget). Only by remembering and becoming aware can we decide where we want to go as people and as artists.

Which artists have inspired your work the most?

This is a question that carries an organic answer. There are many people who have influenced and taught me at an artistic and vital level: from my grandmother, Carmen Plaza, to the girl in charge of darkroom in the school where I studied and opened the doors to experimental photography, Ana Matey. Also the collective Slow Photo, in whose darkroom of Madrid I have been learning and experimenting in a self-taught way since 2016. The artistic and vital references are evolving and changing with one’s life.

When I started studying photography I was fascinated by Alberto García Alix. Goya is another reference with his prints and caprices about the war. Sally Mann, Francesca Woodman, Sophie Calle, May Deren, Muybridge, Kentdrige, Gao Bo, Christian Boltanski. . . there are also friends who inspire me like Gonzalo Borondo or writers and poets like Julio Cortázar, Alejandra Pizarnik or Idea Vilariño. I think I could never be specific to such questions. The human being is an innate creator and can be inspired by a number of people from artistic disciplines or everyday life.

You can follow Irene Zottola on social media and check out her website to see more of her work.

written by eparrino on 2024-01-03 #culture #news #interview #analogue-photography #poetry #mix-media #spanish-artist #audio-visual