New Straits Times, Malaysia
Aug 9 2005
COVER STORY: Colour of quiet melancholy
RUHAYAT X
Laurent Achedjian travels the world to snap stories. RUHAYAT X talks
to the photographer who can bring even the stiffest dummies to life,
about his points of interest and inspiration.
IF a Martian were to land in Malaysia, what would he/she/it notice
the most about this little world we have here? While we wait for the
apocalyptic big bang denoting the start of an old-fashioned alien
invasion a la Steven Spielberg’s dreary War of the Worlds, I suppose
we’ll just have to go for the next best thing – ask a Belgian who has
never been here before.
“What I notice the most about Singapore and here is the colours.
There is a lot of colour around, a lot of yellows and reds,” Laurent
Achedjian helpfully offers. “But sometimes I wonder if that is really
what this place is all about, or just something that I see because
that’s what I look out for.
“For example, here’s a shot I took in a fabric store in Singapore. I
was drawn to the layers and layers of colours and textures, and this
is something new to me. But to you it might be too obvious.”
Indeed, my immediate reaction to the shot was, “So what?” It’s a
scene we have seen so many times that we have become somewhat
desensitised to its inherent beauty. Compounding this is the context:
whereas Achedjian approaches the fabric store with the sense of
wonder of seeing something for the first time, we locals associate
the scene with a commodity, a place where we go to buy things.
Hence, our perception is influenced by our intent. This is where the
lens of a photographer makes its biggest contribution. It can take
even the most mundane objects and make those seem heavenly.
Browsing through his portfolio, it is obvious that Achedjian (left)
has an eye for capturing details, highlighting things that we’d miss
or take for granted.
One photograph which he’d taken in New York, for example, juxtaposes
the seriousness of a news bulletin against a backdrop of the faux
happy life promoted by the typical decadent billboard, forging a new
narrative that tells more about the place in a single frame than
seems reasonable.
In another, he somehow manages to see past the riot of billboards in
a typical Los Angeles neighbourhood to tie them together like
coherent paragraphs of a short story. What drew him to the
composition initially, he says, was the larger-than-life Marlboro Man
in the background. From there he traced out the threads and framed
his story.
Achedjian walks around with his mind fully open to possibilities.
This could be due partly to his journalistic training, which teaches
one to always be aware of one’s surroundings, particularly the
periphery which may add far more interesting details than the main
focus.
He started out in journalism at the University of Brussels because
going to university was “something you had to do, because everyone
else is doing it.” During the course he discovered that journalism
was quite different from what he thought it would be. It wasn’t until
his trip to the US that he discovered his true calling.
“Photography found me,” is how Achedjian puts it. His vacation after
completing his degree was supposed to only be for six months. He
ended up staying in America for the next five years, leaving only
because his visa had run out and he was unable to obtain a work
permit.
“After a couple of months in New York I discovered that I enjoyed it
very much. So I began thinking of ways for me to stay there a bit
longer. I thought, why don’t I take a degree course? I looked around
for a suitable course to take, and decided to do photography.”
Adjusting to a foreign culture is not something unusual for
Achedjian, whose Armenian grandparents had been living in Istanbul in
the early 20th century. They migrated to Belgium to escape
persecution by the revolutionary Turkish government.
“Belgium just seemed a quieter place,” he says, by way of explaining
his ancestors’ somewhat unusual choice of destination. Most Armenians
went to southern France or South America, he says.
His grandmother passed away last year, and he wistfully notes that he
doesn’t know much about who they are or where they had come from.
“They might as well be in the flea market,” he remarks, alluding to
series of pictures he had snapped of previously-cherished family
heirlooms placed for sale in flea markets. The sense of sadness at
pieces of personal history being auctioned away is palpable in his
shots.
If there is one thing that seems to tie his disparate works together,
it is his sense of colour. A flip through his portfolio shows shot
after shot of delicious candy palettes with the contrast pushed
almost to saturation.
“Yeah, what happens is that most of these were still taken from
negatives, rather than digital. I shoot in all kinds of format. And
then they are scanned in and enhanced in Photoshop. No collage or
anything – I play on the colour to make everything seem hyper-real.
But it’s never a drastic change.”
A recurring theme in his compositions is melancholy. Even in
brightly-coloured frames of subjects caught in the throes of
celebration, you can still detect a hint of sadness. As the
photographer had mused previously, you wonder if this what is out
there in the world, or merely the way that Achedjian views the world
around him.
A particularly wonderful image is one of a man dressed in RuPaul-like
drag which Achedjian captured at a gay parade in New York. The man is
standing in the middle of the celebrations of a community which he
must have chosen to be in, dressed in the most colourful dressage,
yet the forlorn gaze in his eyes seems to hint that he feels he
doesn’t quite belong there. The happy context surrounding him only
serves to make his sadness even more intriguing.
“I like to play with personality. How they feel inside. If it’s a
direct smiling face, then I’m not interested,” he says. The man’s
melancholy was in fact what had drawn him in the first place.
Such juxtapositions are indeed Achedjian’s forte. He manages to
capture the discordance with apparent ease. Yet, while he is
intrigued by personality, he says he is more comfortable with
objects, icons and symbols. Sometimes, he even treats the human
subjects in his pictures as mere objects.
He also professes a fondness for what he calls “fake nature”,
man-made environments or things. An example of this is his amazing
ongoing series on store mannequins.
The mannequins are not posed, yet through his lens, they acquire a
distinct personality and become beings with individual attitudes.
Enough to make you believe that at the end of each working day, these
statues have a family they go home to!
Also, his camera provides the fascinating suggestion that mannequin
“personality” and “attitude” differs according to geographical
location. In New York, they are more serious and reflective, whereas
in Singapore they seem happier and openly expressive, in facial
expressions, body language and the clothes they “wear”.
Achedjian acknowledges the sense of amazement. “You can get the
personality out of the mannequins through the context they are
sitting in,” he says, laughing out loud when it was suggested that
one mannequin looked cool. “You just need to get the right angle to
it,” he says modestly.
To date, his works are sold in a limited edition series of three
prints only.
“I’m not yet a famous photographer. I asked the art gallery and they
advised me to make only three copies. They said I could always make
my art print and show it in exhibitions. Later, when I am more
well-known, maybe I can make more prints in each edition,” he
explains.
He once had a solo show in Paris titled “Uncertain Glamour” He found
out that he had to fill up a 20-metre-long space, so he dug up old
photos of his travels in the US.
“I wanted to show everything about the underbelly of America, from
kitsch to vanishing traditions, to show where the country has gone
and is going,” he says.
He passes me a postcard from that show. It has an image of a tattered
flag with red and white stripes fluttering in the wind.
It could have been a Malaysian flag, I say. If not for the water
towers, it could be passed off as a Malaysian scene. Achedjian
smiles. “Yes. I was thinking that also. Maybe I can use this as a
marketing teaser or poster for a solo show here, bridging my time in
the US with my photos of Malaysia. Maybe I’ll talk to GaleriTaksu and
see. I’d love to come back here.”
In the photo, the evening sky is downcast, the setting sun rendering
the reds and yellows with a deep glow. You look at the scene and it
feels like someone had just died. And you think that it would be a
gorgeous show indeed.
Laurent Achedjian’s limited edition prints may be purchased through
GaleriTAKSU (tel: 03-4251-4396). The photographer’s catalogue may be
viewed on his website,