On display at the Kopeikin Gallery through May 18 is Running, the first solo exhibition of Tabitha Soren. These figures, caught in a moment of primal fear while fleeing some unknown danger, reveal the stunning beauty of the survival instinct. At once hero and victim, these men and women are threatened—or feel threatened—in the midst of their daily lives. Reality splits to reveal with power and beauty the final frontier between the vulnerability of existence and the force of being.
Where does your photography come from ?
T. Soren : To me, a photograph is just another place to observe your interior life. Americans are often in too big of a rush to bother. I am often in too big of a rush. Art is the antidote. Also, I look for imperfection. Everything that moves me or captivates me, can often be found in the space where things go wrong, or fall short.
When is your decisive moment for taking photographs ?
T. S : Dramatic light is really important to the pictures so that decides quite a bit about where I shoot, which direction and when. Each image is a mixture of available natural light and artificial flash – as the pictures are a combination of constructed artifice and uncontrolled motion. There isn’t really one decisive moment. Instead, I shoot and shoot, letting power of accident take over.
What inspired you work/your series ?
T. S : I try to avow the power of the fictional–the concocted–the made-up–in my work. To fabricate without irony –to fabricate in pursuit of some vision or truth–is perhaps the skill I am exploring through photography. The pictures are primal in a society that is not. All of the subjects have something at stake. They are ready for a course of action that only they can know. Some of them appear to be in grave situations, which opens to us the inward depths of our own lives, without being prescriptive.
What is the link between your commercial work and your personal work ?
T. S : An emotional truth, I hope. And in both types of pictures, I’m trying to acknowledge the breadth of the unseen world beyond the frame.
What are the current photographic trends for you ?
T. S : For me, the act of photography bears some relationship to how we consciously manage the uncontrollable set of possibilities that exist in life so I don’t really feel very in touch with trends.
The world experience has changed drastically. Its representation has evolved. Has digital become inevitable in the photographic creative process ?
T. S : I started using a digital camera on this series because I could shoot at higher speeds, allowing the runners more spontaneity in low-light environments. I’m pretty comfortable in both arenas but nothing beats making, holding and viewing a black and white gelatin silver print.
Something to add ? The answer to a question I didn’t asked ?
T. S : Music often propels me through a new photo project. My favorite RUNNING images visualize a rhythm that I hope the viewer can hear too. People often ask me what is happening to the runners in the pictures, what’s the story? My pictures are conjured so even I don’t know the whole story. But I do feel like they have truth in them. It’s an emotional truth, though. And I like what Taryn Simon has to say on this topic: “Photography confronts constructed realities, myths and beliefs and provides what appears to be the evidence of a truth. But there are multiples truths attached to every image, depending on the viewer, the intention of the creator and the context in which it is presented.”
Tabitha Soren was born into a US Air Force military family and grew up all over the world. She received a BA in Journalism and Politics at New York University and later studied photography at Stanford University and at California College of the Arts. Soren’s images have been featured in The New York Times Magazine, Blink Magazine, Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, among others. Her work is included in Public collections like the Oakland Museum of Art, Cleveland’s Transformer Station, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Indianapolis, the New Orleans Museum of Art as well as the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in Louisiana.
Interview by Séverine Morel
EXHIBITION
April 13 to May 18, 2013
KOPEIKIN GALLERY
2766 S La Cienega Blvd.
Los Angeles, California 90034
(310) 559-0800
http://www.kopeikingallery.com
