Monica Lek – The Kollektivnye Interview

Monica Lek – The Kollektivnye Interview

Born in the Spanish city of Tarragona, south of Cataluña Monica Lek

’s family all worked in sea-bound or related jobs except her father who was a Kellogg’s man. Perhaps it is this Mediterranean upbringing that has somehow heightened her senses, perhaps though her autodidactic approach to photography is such a success due to her childhood infatuation with cinema.

“I have always felt that my mission is show my feelings to the world and to myself through my pictures, to express how I see the world” she explains as we discuss her introduction to the art form. After studying cinematography and art direction in Barcelona, Lek moved to New York in January of this year to start studying social documentary film while freelancing projects. Now she’s working for Francesco Carrozzini

.

While New York is certainly more than a stone’s throw from Tarragona, travel is not something Lek is unfamiliar with as a trip to Kenya and the resulting photographs illustrate. Her on-going, extensive series ‘Free Metaphors’ caught our eye recently so we grabbed a few minutes with her during a hectic NY schedule to get to the bottom of the project.

KLLKT: ‘Free Metaphors’ is an expansive and varied body of work, what can you tell us about the name and the concept behind it and what ties it all together?

Monica Lek: I can express my feelings regarding the world around us either by poetic or descriptive means. I prefer to express myself metaphorically not symbolically. A symbol contains within itself a definite meaning, certain intellectual formula, while a metaphor is an image. An image possessing the same distinguishing features as the world represents, as my life. An image-as opposed to a symbol- has indefinite meaning. One cannot speak of the infinite world by applying tools that are definite and finite. A metaphor is a being within itself; it falls apart in any attempt of touching it. Metaphors are “you as you like it”.

K: It seems from the variety of places in which the pictures are shot that it is, in a sense, a personal travel journal; would that be a fair assessment?

ML: That’s totally fair! Since recently I have been very conscious about what it is that can make me feel more fulfilled, that can make my reality or whatever it is, my work, without differentiation, free from barriers and totally transparent. My life is the most beautiful work of all, the most amazing masterpiece I ever seen. With this, I write poetry for myself.

It’s the pressure within me, my long obsessions, joys, passions, dramas and thoughts each spiraling into the same circle. It feeds off huge love impulsions, a faithful mirror that is held up to my soul. All of my photographs are better than any argument, although the best ones ever shot are living within me creating absence to you but giving me the essence, as an eternal idea.

K: The series quite heavily features your circle of friends, are they one of your chief sources of inspiration?

ML: They are my inspiration. I’m made of all of them. My art is the diary of my life. People I love are my life. There’s always a psychological moment of intimacy and exploration of the self involved, emotions, visual metaphors and hidden pleasures.

One of my favourite things is see through the viewer of the camera how people react, their behaviour change. They want to look beautiful as someone is going to judge them. This, for me is something that is intrinsically ugly though, as the moment becomes devoid of nature.

K: Is the nudity in the free metaphors series itself a metaphor for the up-close and personal manner in which you document the lives of your circle of friends?

ML: The body always must be in its naked form. Otherwise it’s like you want to photograph the sky with this amazing sunset and then you go and you obscure it with an umbrella because the light is bothering you.

I see what we are made of with the body, it is the most tender feeling. You start seeing the analogies, eyes-moon… freckles-own constellation… veins-branches… the naked body is the highest fashion. It’s neither personal nor impersonal, it is how it is, I don’t ask for nudity. My pictures are transparent. There is nudity because we were naked. You don’t see thing as they are, you see things as you are.

K: From ‘people’ or ‘place’ which would you consider most central to your work?

ML: The people create the place. I need eyes in my pictures, skin. If I don’t have it I try to find it in the sea or sky, finding the connection between the space and myself.

K: Do you feel that through your documentation of time spent with your friends you are exploring a notion of voyeurism, in the sense that often, quite intimate moments are photographed?

ML: I want to differentiate this fact. I’m totally a voyeurist about my work once it’s done, when the picture is already taken, that is when I observe my work and I analyze it, seeking answers and wonders.

But I can’t be a voyeurist because I’m always part of the scene, I’m always there present, performing, same level that the person or object I photograph, there’s an interaction.

K: Your photography mixes natural exposures with some which are manipulated, often mirrored, how do you think that this combination communicates your style in a creative sense?

ML: All my pictures are analog; one chance at capturing a moment. I’m obsessed with experimenting with different kind of films. It is like black magic. Negatives and positives. Dark and lightness. Reflections. I’m a reflection photographing other reflections, within reflections. Through mirroring I explore a new hidden paradise. There are visual spells everywhere waiting to be perceived, but we don’t have time anymore to see them. This modern life has more ‘modern’ than ‘life’. Everything is so synthetic. We are going to miss the best of it.

K: Has moving to NY affected your style in the sense that you find yourself inspired by different things?

ML: Totally, this city is the jungle, there is so much going on. I don’t feel the same connection
that I had in the past with my pictures. I have been taking a lot of portraits, strangers showing me their therapeutical smile. Snapshots of everything that is new to my eyes.

K: Is ‘Free Metaphors’ an ongoing project or is it ‘complete’?

ML: Free metaphors will take a lifetime to express.

 

Check out Monica’s “Free Metaphors: The Last Issue” below.