Andris májusban érkezik a Malomba a rezidenciaprogramunk első vendégeként. Feltettünk neki pár kérdést a munkájával és az életével kapcsolatosan.
What do you consider most important in your work? The unrepeatability and transformative power of the images I make and the durability of the stories they create - the ability to convey my human experience of this world at all. They give me both a huge sense of responsibility and an unquenchable motivation to tell the stories that are important to me in an even more tailored way.
What is your favourite food right now?
Chicken paprikash has always been my favourite.
What is your biggest professional challenge at the moment?
There are several, but one of the biggest challenges for me is not to overthink my professional life, i.e. not to compare or worry in this highly competitive environment where you have to constantly prove your ability. I've always wanted to go my own way, and now it's becoming clear that the best things happened to me when I listened to my inner voices and not to others. Also, it's more important that the story reaches its destination and has an impact on people, rather than my own ego shining through.
One tends to over-mystify one's role and get a little caught up in one's professional identity. Life (thankfully) is not all about documentary photography, you have to be able to switch off and when I think about it the end goal is always to have fun at the end of the day. Of course there is often overlap. It's a nice feeling when you're liberated in the creative process and you know you can finally shoot the way you had planned beforehand. But the nature of creation is that it's not always the case, and most of the time you run into obstacles and you have to be able to accept that. I think I've developed a lot in this and realizing this has made me realize how I want to approach photography: with a certain lightness, a certain possibility, but above all, independently.
My second answer is a continuation of the previous line of thought: it is a huge challenge not to take myself too seriously, not to want to rigidly meet expectations that I did not set myself. More specifically, not to take myself too seriously, but what I do. I need more humour in my everyday work, it's unnecessary to overthink. The product will smell of sweat if I keep pushing and explaining about it. This is something I think many photographers (or any kind of creator) can suffer from.
I have had to understand the simple basic truth that my journey ( and everyone else's) in photography ( and life) is not comparable to each other, at least not in any meaningful way. Simply because my decisions and my intuitions are unique and unrepeatable, because in a good case I make them, they come from me. They are not better or worse than others, just factually mine. I have to believe that. No one can expose in the same second, compose with the same vision, speak the same way to a tired worker in the village pub, take the same route to the next destination, or spot the same oddity on the side of the road. I could go on. If I adopt this approach, I can move forward more clearly with the work I've started and my professional identity will be on firmer footing. It is from impulsive, spontaneous, decisions that a creative practice becomes sensitive and honest, not from producing visual clichés on an assembly line according to the expectations of others.
How did you feel on a Wednesday morning in the last six months?
Reflecting on the previous question, probably impatient. I could have been wondering where I should be or what I should be doing instead of sipping my favourite Japanese green tea with toasted rice (gen mai cha) and enjoying the morning sunlight streaming in with the utmost serenity. Impatience takes time away from the present. That's the theme of 2023 for me.Instead of daydreaming too much, it's good to be present in our own lives sometimes. I would like to wake up in this spirit on Wednesday mornings in the next six months.
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