A Small Voice: Conversations with photographers and filmmakers – Details, episodes & analysis

Using photography, testimony and archive, Diana Matar's in-depth bodies of work investigate themes of history, memory and state sponsored violence. Grounded in heavy research and often spending years on a project, Diana attempts to capture the invisible traces of human history and produces installations and books that query what role aesthetics might playin the depiction of power. A graduate of the Royal College of Art, Diana has received the Deutsche Bank Pyramid Award for Fine Art; the International Fund for Documentary Photography; a Ford Foundation Grant for artists making work on history and memory; and twice been awarded an Arts Council of England Individual Artist Grant. Her work is held in public and private collections and has been exhibited in numerous institutions including Tate Modern, London; The National Museum of Singapore; Museum Folkswang, Essen, Germany; The Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris; The Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; and Musee de la Photographie a Charleroi. Her monograph Evidencewas published in 2014 by Schilt Publishing Amsterdam to critical acclaim and chosen by New York Times Photography critic Teju Cole as one of two best photography books of the year. In 2019 Matar was appointed Distinguished Artist at Barnard College Columbia University, New York. In April 2024 Diana’s most recent book, My America, was published by GOST Books. 

In episode 238, Diana discusses, among other things:

• Early experiences in Panama and Latin America.
• How an errand to buy a lightbulb changed everything.
• A brush with Manuel Noriega.
• How she met her Libyan husband, the writer Hisham Matar.
• Why she found doing her M.A. ‘really, really challenging’.
• Her first book project, Evidence.
• The inclusion of her own writing in the book.
• Her latest book, My America.
• Some of the key factors around the issue of police shootings.
• The complexities of the subject.
• How she has “intermalised a European sense of America.”
• Why she shot the project on her iPhone and the rules she imposed on herself.
• Whether photographs can ‘bear the burden of history.’
• What she is currently working on.
• Her reaction to the bonus questions.

Website | Instagram

“I think I internalised a European sense of America in several different ways. When I was out on the road a lot of things seemed exotic to me, things that I’d grown up with and were just part of being: the long distances; these buildings that just pop up in the middle of nowhere; the emptiness; the scale… the kind of watching of movies of what is the American west. The internalisation I think has something to do with scale. I live in London - the small streets, you’re around people all the time, and then being in this openness, which i miss and i love, but I did find it unnerving and it effected how I made the work actually.”

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Abdulhamid Kircher is an artist from Queens, New York. He was born in 1996 in Berlin to German and Turkish parents, and immigrated with his mother to the United States at the age of eight. His work is a living archive of place and people, as it is also a dedication to the language of photography, the mechanics and aesthetic possibilities of the form. Through his devotion to classical forms of image making and the radical experimentation required for each of his subjects, his process bridges the idea between document and narrative. He received his BA in Culture and Media from The New School in 2018 and his MFA in Visual Arts from the University of California San Diego in 2022. Abdul currently lives and works between Berlin and Los Angeles.

Abdul’s debut photobook, Rotting From Within, was recently published by Loose Joints in June this year (2024). In it Abdul explores identity, patriarchy, generational trauma and the possibility of reconciliation in a diaristic project between Berlin and Turkey. A solo exhibition of the work is currently on show at the Carlier Gebauer gallery in Berlin until the 31st August. The 53 minute documentary film, Noch ein Kind (Still a Kid), 2024, by Abdul’s childhood friend Maxi Hachem, a Lebanese-German filmmaker based in Berlin, is also being screened as part of the exhibition. His documentary investigates the complex relationships and wounded history of Rotting from Within spanning the past three years between Berlin and Turkey.

In episode 237, Abdul discusses, among other things:

• His early life “dragging bags of weed around the house”
• The history of paternal abuse in his family
• How he ended up moving from Berlin to New York
• How he got into photography through Tumblr
• How his interest in photography drove the reconnection with his father
• Where the books title stems from
• Parallels between his mum and grandmother
• Keeping a diary since highschool
• His obsessive nature and tendency for self-flagellation
• His partner, Zoe, who contributed text to the book
• How the documentary his friend Maxi Hachem shot, Noch Ein Kind (Still A Kid)
• How the work has been received as an exhibition
• How the process of making the work may or may not have helped him

Website | Instagram

“I love it, but it’s beyond love because it feels like something that I just need to do. That’s why I was talking about photography being such an intuitive thing in my head, it’s because I don’t really have an option. I need to take these photographs, I need to make these photographs, and it’s not really something I have power over. And I think that’s the scary bit, it’s that yes I love it for what it’s allowed me to explore and allowed me to sort of open up to the world, but in that way it’s also become a burden.”

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Louis Quail is a documentary photographer who increasingly devotes his time to personal, long-term projects. His most recent work ‘Big Brother’ (published with Dewi Lewis, 2018), has received significant critical acclaim. The book and the work in it has been shortlisted for the Arles Book and Text award 2018, Wellcome Trust photography prize 2019 and is winner of the Renaissance Series Prize 2017. His Arts Council funded, Solo show, ‘Before They Were Fallen’ also received significant exposure. It toured the UK and reflects an interest in aftermath that has taken him, previously to Libya, Afghanistan, Haiti and Kosovo. He has worked extensively for some of the UK’s best known magazines and has been published internationally over a period of many years. He has twice been a finalist at the National Portrait Gallery portraiture award and is held in their permanent collection. He lectures, exhibits internationally and makes short films.

In episode 236, Louis discusses, among other things:

• How the subject of his book, his big brother Justin, is doing
• Childhood with his schizophrenic mum
• Why he believes firmly in the importance of tolerance
• The way that he approached telling his brother’s story
• Some of the structural and political issues that impact people with mental health issues
• The importance of not over-focussing on some of the un-pc language that some of us use in daily life (including me, in this example)
• How he found his way into photography
• His portrait series ‘Aftermath’ which began in Kosovo
• His career as a jobbing editorial photographer
• HIs latest project about air pollution

Website | Instagram

“I’m not judgemental, I’m quite tolerant, and I do think that’s an important quaility that’s very much overlooked, especially these days on Twitter when everyone’s reacting to stuff all the time. I don’t like that. I’m really just into giving people a bit of space an allowing people to make some mistakes.”

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As a teenager I wanted to be a professional journalist and an amateur photographer. This was a perfectly good and eminently attainable goal for a bright, lower-middle class fifteen year old boy to have. So, for reasons that are too complicated to explore here, I promptly set about dismantling any prospect of achieving it in a miasma of Marlboro reds and vast quantities of Pakistani Black. After hundreds of identical misspent nights in the White Hart, a relentless pursuit of any and all self-destructive displacement activites, and a brief detour into the cul-de-sac of a media production degree, the ‘dream’ was eventually realised when I sat down in front of a portable typewriter (old sckool, y’all) and became a freelance journalist, contributing features on a diverse range of subjects to a wide array of publications from specialist magazines to national broadsheets.

This arrangement was soon to change, however, when a long-standing love of photography was re-ignited by a short succession of annual pilgrimages to the World Press Photo exhibition at the Barbican in London. Instinctively feeling - or perhaps hoping - that I may have caught a glimpse into my future, I enrolled on a post-graduate diploma in photojournalism at the London College of Printing, after which I managed to combine both disciplines before ultimately electing to focus on the photography. Thus the adolescent ambition was fulfilled, but arse about backwards.

Then a bunch of other stuff - aka ‘life’ - happened; I worked consistently as a freelance editorial photographer (though never really as much as I should have); had an all too brief foray into the big bucks of commercial and lifestyle commissions; made sure I torpedoed every opportunity to progress that came my way lest I might have to face the terrifying prospect of success; and more or less sleep-walked zombie-like through what should have been the best years of my life. Thankfully the Marlboro reds and Pakistani Black, and indeed the endless, Groundhog Day nights in the pub, had long since lost any allure they may have once had. As, to be brutally frank, had photography and just about everything else.

Anyway, then a bunch more stuff happened, most of which (with the notable exception of my inexplicably becoming a father) was less than fascinating. In 2015 I decided to start a photography podcast. I’ve written about the reasons for this in my blog but the truth is it was what the Americans might call a ‘hail Mary pass’. A last ditch attempt at dragging myself out of the mire of self-flagellation, regret, disappointment and depression in which I found myself. I’ve come to realise that though I seem to lack the confidence and self-belief to really succeed and thrive, I can at least always muster the necessary resources to save myself from oblivion. Such was the case in September 2015 when I started this podcast. As Marc Maron once put it when asked whether he could have imagined when he started his podcast eventually interviewing the President. “I didn’t imagine anything. It was an alternative to suicide!”

Thanks for listening. I really mean that. Here’s to the next 100 episodes. I’ll do them as well as I can, keeping in mind my aforementioned podcasting hero’s beautiful words of advice: try to act from your heart, no matter how broken it is.

In episode 100, I discuss, among other things:

• Early days
• First breaks
• Regrets
• Voice memos
• The podcast
• My long-term project: 'Indicative Only'.

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“Never believe you’ve played your last hand... Never believe you've played your last hand. There’s always more cards coming.”

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Photographer, Ben Smith introduces a new weekly photography podcast: 'A Small Voice: Conversations With Photographers' and answers a few 'frequently anticipated questions.'

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Visual storyteller Kiana Hayeri grew up in Tehran and moved to Toronto while she was still a teenager. Faced with the challenges of adapting to a new environment, she took up photography as a way of bridging the gap in language and culture. In 2014, a short month before NATO forces pulled out, Kiana moved to Kabul and stayed on for 8 years. Her work often explores complex topics such as migration, adolescence, identity and sexuality in conflict-ridden societies.

In 2014, Kiana was named as one of the emerging photographers by PDN 30 Under 30. In 2016, she was selected as the recipient of Chris Hondros Award as an emerging photographer. In 2017, she received a grant from European Journalism Center to do a series of reporting on gender equality out of Afghanistan and received Stern Grant in 2018 to continue her work on the state of mental health among afghan women. In 2020, Kiana received Tim Hetherington Visionary award for her proposed project to reveal the dangers of dilettante “hit & run” journalism. Later that year, she was named as the 6th recipient of the James Foley Award for Conflict Reporting. In 2021, Kiana received the prestigious Robert Capa Gold Medal for her photographic series Where Prison is Kind of a Freedom, documenting the lives of Afghan women in Herat Prison. In 2022, Kiana was part of The New York Times reporting team that won The Hal Boyle Award for The Collapse of Afghanistan and was shortlisted under International Reporting for the Pulitzer Prize. In the same year, she was also named as the winner of Leica Oskar Barnack Award for her portfolio, Promises Written On the Ice, Left In the Sun, an intimate look into the lives of Afghan from all walks of life.

Kiana, along with her colloaborator, the researcher Mélissa Cornet, is recipient of the 2024 Carmignac Photojournalism Award for the reportage No Woman’s Land, an investigation into the plight of women in Afghanistan under the Taliban and the work will be showcased in a double exhibition this Autumn - from October 25th to November 18th - at the Réfectoire des Cordeliers in Paris as part of the Photo Saint Germain festival.

Kiana is a Senior TED fellow, a National Geographic Explorer grantee and a regular contributor to The New York Times and National Geographic. She is currently based in Sarajevo, telling stories from Afghanistan, The Balkans and beyond.

In episode 239, Kiana discusses, among other things:

Her story for the NYT about FGM in Gambia

Gender apartheid

Her take on winning awards as a photojournalist

Having to Google what the Robert Cap Gold Medal was - having won it

Her book When Cages Fly

Moving to Canada from Iran as a teenager

How photography helped her bridge the ‘culture and language gap’.

Being at a ‘gifted’ school

Her first trip to Afghanistan

Comparisons with Iran in terms of relative ‘liberalism’.

Her first commission from National Geographic

Her story on women in Herat prison

The moment Afghanistan fell to the Taliban and her guilt over leaving friends behind

Gender apartheid in Afghanistan specifically

The dangers of ‘dilettante hit and run journalism’

Referenced:

Eddie Adams workshops

Dominic Nahr

Kitra Cahana

Ed Ou

Guy Martin

Stephen Mayes

Mélissa Cornet

Sarah Leen

Website | Instagram

“I tell people having a camera is like living a thousand different lives, but you have that camera as an excuse to immerse yourself into something, live it for a while and then walk away when you’re ready.”

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Robbie Lawrence is a London based Scottish photographer and director represented by Webber Represents. Robbie is acutely attentive to the way images tell a story. Working with a painterly softness and sensitivity to his subjects, he deals in detail and nuance. From portraiture, travel and documentary to editorial work, he places the human experience front and centre to create thoughtful, abstract images, with an emphasis on narrative.

Recent books include Blackwater River and A Voice Above The Linn published by Stanley/Barker. Stills gallery in Edinburgh hosted the first UK institutional solo exhibition by Robbie in 2022, bringing together a snapshot of life post-Brexit across Scotland’s cities, rural locations and coastal towns.

Robbie’s new book, Long Walk Home, was just released (September 2024) by Stanley/Barker.

Clients Include: UN, Apple, Nike, Hermes, Gucci, The New Yorker, Du Monde, The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, I-D and many others.

In episode 240, Robbie discusses, among other things:

• His recent assignment at The Olympics
• His internship in Paris and his time in New York
• His relationship to painting and writing
• Building a career to encompass commercial and personal work
• How working commercially can be a ‘relief’.
• His ‘macrojournalistic approach’
• His first book project, Blackwater River
• His second book, A Voice Above The Linn
• Collaboration with poet John Burnside
• His new book about the Highland Games, Long Walk Home.
• Why he threw away three years worth of work and began again
• Working digitally with ‘manual’ lenses
• The difference between myth and history
• A reading from John Burnside’s essay in the book

Referenced:

• The Tokyo Olympiad, Kon Ichikawa
• The French, William Klein
• John Burnside
• Renton’s rant on why it’s ‘shite being Scottish’ from the movie Trainspotting

Website | Instagram

“I like the variety […] I like being on set. You become more like a director. As a photographer you’re almost the emotional heartbeat of a set. It’s interesting because at school and university I really found exams hellish from an expectation point of view. Like, I would put myself under a lot of pressure. And I would describe some of those more pressurised commercial jobs almost like a school exam where you expected to produce something of quality under a very tight time constraint. As a physical experience it can feel similar, and I suppose maybe it’s just experience that I can now recall moments where I’ve overcome those kind of stresses. So I like the shift.”

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Agnieszka Sosnowska was born in Warsaw, Poland and was raised in Boston, Massachusetts. She earned a BFA from Massachusetts College of Art and a MFA from Boston University. She is currently an elementary school teacher. She lives on farm
in East Iceland. She is recognised for her self portraits that span 30 years. Currently she is working on series that embodies her life as an immigrant in Iceland. She uses the camera to take inspiration from a land that is otherworldly.

“I grew up in Boston and traveled to Iceland 25 years ago on a whim”, says Agnieszka. “I fell in love and remained. With my Icelandic husband I chose to live in nature, not visit it. This decision has not been without tests. Together we have made a life that I feel we are only beginning. Everyday, I search for corners of quiet. When there, I stop and listen for a long time. These places exist around our farm, with friends, and the students I teach. These places are my everyday. They are my everything.”

Agnieszka has been the recipient of a number of grants, including a Fulbright Scholars Fellowship to Poland and an American Scandinavian Fellowship to Iceland. She was awarded the Hjálmar R. Bárðarson Photography Grant by the National Museum of Iceland. Her series was awarded the Director’s Choice by the Center awards in 2017 and she has been in the Top 50 of Critical Mass on three occasions. Her work has been exhibited in the National Museum of Iceland and the Reykjavik Museum of Photography. She is represented exclusively by Vision Neil Folberg Gallery in Jerusalem.

Earlier this year, Agnieszka released her debut photobook, För, published by Trespasser Books and already sold out.

Her collaboration with Icelandic poet Ingunn Snædal, entitled RASK, is currently being exhibited at the Reykjavik Museum of Photography until Decembet 2024.

In episode 241, Agnieszka discusses, among other things:

• Early years travelling to Communist Poland
• Wanting to assimilate into the USA as an immigrant
• Early education in photography at Mass. Art
• Her early interest in self-portraiture
• Not having a plan… but being a hard worker
• The trip to Iceland that changed her life…
• …and her decision to move there
• A description of where she lives
• The hardest thing to adapt to being the Winters
• The first things she started to photograph there
• Self-portaiture and the suckiness of documenting ageing
• The freedom of realising that you don’t have to work on distinct ‘projects’
• ‘Myth of a Woman’ - her attempt at exploring the experience of womanhood
• Collaborating with her students on portrait sessions
• The last picture in the book
• Her collaboration with Icelandic poet Ingunn Snædal, RASK, currently an exhibition at the Reykjavik Museum of Photography

Referenced:

• Cindy Sherman
• Margaret Johnson
• Laura McPhee
• Ingunn Snædal
• Barbara Bosworth

Website | Instagram

“I wanted to grow. I just didn’t know how. And I think the only way you grow is not by thinking about it but by doing it and making the mistakes. And I made a lot of mistakes. And thank God I did because in doing the mistakes I started to get more to having the self-portraits be more real. And that’s really hard to do. Especially I think as me having done it for so long, and also getting older in front of a camera, as a woman, it’s hard.”

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Polly Braden is a documentary photographer whose work features an ongoing conversation between the people she photographs and the environment in which they find themselves. Highlighting the small, often unconscious gestures of her subjects, Polly particularly enjoys long-term, in depth collaborations that in turn lends her photographs a unique, quiet intimacy. She works on long-term, self-initiated projects, as well as commissions for international publications.

Polly has produced a large body of work that includes not only solo exhibitions and magazine features, but a number of books published by Dewi Lewis, including Holding The Baby (2022), Out of the Shadows: The Untold Story of People with Autism or Learning Disabilities (2018), and China Between (2010), and two published by Hoxton Mini Press: London’s Square Mile: A Secret City (2019) and Adventures in the Lea Valley), (2016).

Polly teaches regularly at The University of Westminster and London College of Communication (LCC), she is a winner of the Jerwood Photography Prize, The Guardian Young Photographer of the Year, 2002, and the Joanna Drew Bursary 2013. Polly is nominated by Hundred Heroines 2020 and she has exhibited at numerous venues internationally. Her most recent solo exhibition, of her project Leaving Ukraine, just ended at the Foundling Museum in London, where it was on show from March 15th to October 20th 2024.

In episode 242, Polly discusses, among other things:

• Exhitibition at the Foundling Museum, Leaving Ukraine and how it came about
• Some of the people she focussed on
• Holding The Baby , her project on single parents
• Jena’s story
• Why she has started working with film projects
• Her introduction to photography
• Her first trip to China: “an exercise in isolation”
• Her project on Chinese factories and their workers
• Great Interactions book on people with learning disabilities
• Her current project she’s working on
• Securing funding, building partnerships and being an entrepreneur

Referenced:

• Patrick Sutherland
• Cheryl Newman
• Katz Pictures
• Becky Sexton

Website | Instagram

“I’m not someone who wanted to just jump in, point a camera at someone and walk away. I think I’ve always been someone who wanted it to feel very collaborative. Whether you’re on the street and you’ve made eye contact and you feel like someone’s ok with it, at the very basic level, to now as I get older, when I’d be as interested in someone doing all the work and me just being a vehicle through which someone can tell their story.”

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Featuring:

• Javier Hirschfeld Moreno
• Francesco Zizola
• Melissa Schriek
• Chilli Power
• Self Publishers United
• Bryan Schutmaat
• Tiffany Jones
• Atong Atem

Website | Instagram

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