Bearing no captions or other information, Emilia Stefani’s series La Mue (“Moulting”) tells each viewer a different story. The approach here differs greatly from her earlier Polaroids. Has she gone through a moulting herself?
Why this title, La Mue [“Moulting”]? Are you removing some kind of protection?
No, not protection. It’s a more direct way of looking at things and carving into reality. The title comes from a trip I took to South Africa. For a month there was moulted snake skin on the table in the garden. I found it fascinating, leaving an empty skin behind you. When I came back, I developed my film and kept eight pictures (the basis of the series) in which something new emerged. The title suggested itself. At first I found it dissonant. But it was so obvious, and seemed to say so much about the images. Now I’m used to it. Looking back, I can see the symbolic weight of such a title. People see things I didn’t intend. It’s not supposed to be about me exhibiting some deep inner change—not at all. It just seemed like these new images depicted, each in their own subtle way, a transient state.
How do you feel about this change, and what do you think caused it?
It seems to be a “logical” evolution in my work. Things change. Luckily, we’re not condemned to keep doing the same thing forever. I live photography: I do it, see it, think it. I guess it’s only natural that my vision would get more refined, and that I’d become interested in other things. This series more or less started when the previous one, Le refuge, ended. At the same time, it’s very simplistic to see things in terms of beginnings and endings… There’s a continuity to my work. I think that the publication of the book with Yellow Now gave a precise form to a long photographic period, and that allowed me to undergo a symbolic renaissance.
What are you trying to do? Tell a story? Show your emotions?
Definitely not. That’s exactly what I’m afraid of. My private life and emotions may be the raw material of my work, but I’m not trying to tell people the story of my life. Of course, it’s a thin line. I’ve spent years working on “intimacy.” Things have changed, and now I’m working on the image itself, light itself. Landscapes, nature, wilderness all fascinate me. That might not be apparent. I like the pictures to be ambiguous, it shouldn’t be obvious. What’s not said is much more interesting than what is. I’m also wary of the “subject,” that’s why portraits are difficult for me. A face says too much, and too quickly.
Read the full article on the French version of L’Oeil.
EXHIBITION
La Mue by Emilia Stefani-Law
Through March 22nd, 2015
CONTRETYPE
4A, Cité Fontaine – 1060 Saint-Gilles
Brussels
Belgium
www.contretype.org
BOOK
White Days/Le Refuge
Photographs by Emilia Stefani-Law
Editions Yellow Now
www.yellownow.be
