John Vink, of Belgium, documented the problems associated with water as a resource in the Sahel region of Africa, particularly efforts under way to prevent future large-scale droughts, to save vegetation and to aid people in their fight against illnesses related to the water shortage.
Belgium –
KT: How did you get into photography? When/what was your first encounter with Photography & Activism together?
JV: I started photography at an early age. My father gave me a Kodak Brownie camera when I was 10 years old, and after a short period of time, I discovered the magic of how images appear in the red light of an improvised lab where I used to process my film and make prints.
As to the encounter with activism and photography, that started during my photography studies at La Cambre; a fine arts school based on the teaching principles of the Bauhaus. It was September 1968 and a rather tumultuous time at universities and art schools in France and Belgium. Many aspects of society were radically questioned, and demonstrations were organized against the Colonel regime in Greece. Left-wing activists happily challenged the Belgian immigration laws or other topics. For a time La Cambre was occupied day and night, and the capacity of the school and its artists were put to use to produce propaganda posters and flyers which were distributed to the universities. Together with other students of the photography department, we documented these activities. However, critical thinking, a sense of justice, the independence of mind, all needed in the context of activism, were trademarks of the education I received from my parents; although it was not their intension to make me a somewhat rebellious son. I must stress that if some can perceive me as an activist, I do not feel I am one. I was merely providing information to those who were getting their shirts wet in their activists’ approach.
KT: Your projects are based on subjects which have political, social and cultural relevance ranging from your old work – Niger, Mali, Kashmir, Mexico, Iraq, Pakistan, Africa to documenting modern-day conflict in Cambodia which explores the history, growth, and landscape of the region. How do you select your subject for your projects?
JV: Subjects with political, social and cultural relevance abound in this world. It may be hard for some to distinguish between the glitter and superficiality of the ongoing consumerism, but they are all around if one takes some distance from the frenzied market economy.
Most of the time I don’t make a selection, it is more of a growth process which happens within the development of another story. Stories overlap during their realization: one still ongoing leads to the next one and it slowly takes shape; I kind of slide from one story into another. The ‘Water in Sahel’ story had a lot to do with forced migration caused by the lack of water, and that gave me the impulse to start the Refugees’ story. Besides the forced migration aspect, the Refugees’s story had a lot to do with a sense of belonging to a piece of land and cultural identity or the loss thereof. So, it made sense to move on towards the people of the mountains which deals with just that. Were these communities pushed to the mountains because of their cultural differences? Or was their cultural identity preserved because the outside did not contaminate it in the haven of their valleys? The traveling fatigue and all those previously covered topics together made me focus on Cambodia for an extended period to dig deeper and less superficially in them.
The 17 years I spent in Cambodia continued to deal with land, with development, with being uprooted culturally. There is that thread throughout my work which has to do with identity, with the sense of belonging, with disruptions in ordinary lives, and with imposed change. My next book, which will be an overview of my work for the last 30 years, is called ‘The Thread.’
