For her first European exhibition, Melisa Teo shows us a part of her spiritual journey. After a career in book publishing, the young woman from Singapore suddenly dropped everything, to devote herself to photography.
“I was a book editor for a book publishing company until I bought a camera. I call it my Pandora’s box because because it unleashed all the demons within me. In Singapore we use to say that the five Cs (Condominium, Cash, Car, Credit card, Country club) are rules of success. So why if I have all of this, I’m still not happy ? What is my purpose in life ? And what is life all about ? I thought through religions I could find an answer, to what is the purpose of life.”
Her meeting with Abbas, the Magnum photographer, was decisive. A lot of Abbas’s work focuses on religions. Teo quits her job and goes travelling with him in Asia and discovered Buddhism and Hinduism. India, Nepal, Japan, Myanmar, Indonesia… From all these travels, Teo brings us unconventional pictures, realized as her own perception, which makes her work more interesting. Of course, we can still recognize the Ganges’ ghât but from her point of view. Here, perfect frame and focus are not the priority. Teo works on instinct, using the surrounding light. Experimentation and meditation helps her a lot, as she explains:
“Meditation is key to my creative process because it sharpens my intuition by opening the ‘third eye’. Intuition is an inner knowing, a force which pushes me to act without first reasoning… of where to go, when to go there, what to do, where to point my camera, how to frame the shot, when to click the shutter, at what settings, etc. This inner ‘voice’ guides me when I work, and even in the decisions I take in everyday life. At times when this intuition tells me to take a step ‘off the cliff’ into the unknown and I do so, the ground always rises to catch me.”
There is an obvious pictorial dimension in her images, almost close to abstract sometimes and surreal. Some of them reminds us the paintings of Indian religious iconography, like the photographs taken in Har Ki Pauri for instance.
In between her travels in Asia, Abbas sends her to Cuba, where she will meets the Santeria pastors. The journey continues to Mexico. During these four years where she travels around the world, Melisa Teo thinks she found an answer and became more in harmony with herself. She would like to continue her project.
On the occasion of the exhibition Light From Within, the eponymous book is released.
Juliette Deschodt
EXHIBITION
Light From Within
In part of le Mois de la Photo-Off 2012
and Festival Photo Saint-Germain-Des-Prés 2012
From November 9 to December 22, 2012
Jas Gallery
17 rue des Saints Pères
75006 Paris
France
BOOK
Light From Within
Photographs by Melisa Teo
Epilogue by Abbas / Magnum Photo
Publisher: Les Editions du Pacifique
W198 mm x H270 mm
136 pages
English
ISBN: 9789810720452
