[EN] VISION #64 — Cécile Smetana

VisionSaison 5

12 juin

I had the great pleasure to discover the work of Cécile Smetana, a French-Danish documentary photographer, on the occasion of this interview. During my research, I learnt that she began her career as a photojournalist in conflict and crisis zones, mainly in Central Africa, but that she moved away from photojournalism several years ago and now shares her work between personal projects and commercial commissions.

Cécile felt that this break with a certain tradition of photojournalism was necessary to find her own identity as a photographer. No longer wishing to document these territories through the lens of violence or misery, she now envisages her documentary approach from a subjective and intimate point of view. In her personal projects, which she continues to carry out among African communities, in Central Africa and in other regions of the world, the photographer seeks to convey the individual stories of the people she meets locally and with whom she develops a relationship. Looking through her work, I was struck by the gentleness and the intimacy emanating from it. Her images, mostly portraits, are calm and filled with an almost magical timelessness. The people in her photographs glow with light and often appear in the presence of natural elements and evanescent and dreamlike landscapes. Her photographs convey an intimate dialogue with their subjects, allowing them to express their individuality freely, both through their presence and eyes.

In this podcast, Cécile Smetana talks about her early fascination with press photography and her desire to discover the world, particularly Africa, triggered by these images from elsewhere. She talks about making this dream come true during her first assignment in Rwanda and DRC, but also about her disenchantment with the reality of her profession. Her travels back and forth to the field triggered a feeling of discrepancy and solitude, which quickly led her to question her position as a white, Western photojournalist working with predominantly black populations in areas where access to resources and rights are not guaranteed. She explains how this awareness led her to develop a documentary approach based on human encounters, in which she asserts her subjectivity, including through the inspiration of Gabriel García Márquez's magic realism.

Born in Denmark to a Danish mother and a French father from Algeria exiled after the war, the photographer also talks about the ‘cultural in-between’ in which she grew up, and the impact of this family history on her photographic work. She mentions a couple of personal projects, including one in Guadeloupe about a health scandal, co-written with a local friend, and a more intimate project currently in progress, which involves following the tracks of the Sirocco wind in the Mediterranean, in search of her Algerian origins.

Beyond being a wonderful photographic discovery, this interview was an opportunity for a fascinating reflection on the ethics and responsibility of photojournalism and photography in general, and the importance of being aware of where we are looking from.