Roger Ballen is an American artist living in Johannesburg, South Africa, and working in its surrounds since the 1970s.My purpose in taking photographs over the past forty years has ultimately been about defining myself. It has been fundamentally a psychological and existential journey. I often question whether the face I see in the mirror is mine, and where my thoughts come from. ‘Reality’ is a word that has no meaning to me; it is unfathomable. I would rather express the enigma behind this word than ponder its fundamental nature.
South Africa –
Celebrated Photographer Roger Ballen has been photographing for around 50 years mostly in Johannesburg, South Africa. His work is prominent in its dense and visceral images of real and imagined situations, treading a thin line between the dream and the nightmare, drawing the viewer in and then taking them along an existential journey. He has spent most of his life documenting the social, economic and cultural impoverishments faced by his subjects, in a bold and experimental manner, taking us into the dark recesses of their minds, and in turn revealing to us our own dark sides.
Manik: So, I’ve tried to focus the whole interview on your recent book ‘Asylum of the Birds’ and the movie primarily, because much of your personal information has already been revealed in previous interviews.
Roger: Yeah, that’s fine. Let’s concentrate on the film, that’s great.
Manik: You use the iconic symbol of the birds and then you juxtapose it with the mysterious dark underworld of your imagination. What is the purpose of creating this paradox?
Roger:Well. I think it’s a matter of creating a metaphor, I think good art’s about metaphors. It’s about showing visual relationships that subconsciously you’re aware of. I think the purpose is actually to create allegories, to create metaphors, to create new meanings through the relationship of the birds, which in a way is a symbol of peering into this dark, sort of a dark underworld.
Take off, 2012, 6189Take off, 2012
Manik: You’ve been very open about your intent in choosing titles for your books and projects. How did the title ‘Asylum of the Birds’ originate?
Roger: Well it’s—I’m just trying to remember actually how the word asylum came about. I think it came about because in the English language ‘Asylum’ has two meanings. One is place of refuge. And so the place where I work was a place of refuge for a lot of people. And secondly it’s a place of madness. So I thought the two meanings of the word enable language, in so many ways, to describe the place that I worked in. And then the place that I worked in, with little birds, I decided in 2008 to work on the series concentrated on birds and the relationships to the so-called asylum of the bird’s house.
