Introducing Seba Kurtis as featured in Home For Good curated by Jon Levy.
 
 

 
In the wake of the Argentinian economic crisis of the early 2000s, SEBA KURTIS went to Europe and lived in Spain as an illegal immigrant. Of this experience, he writes, “I woke up everyday concerned that if I didn’t pick a good place to hide, the next time that the police showed up, my life in Europe and everything I had would be terminated. The constant fear and uncertainty of daily life eventually subdues your personality and paranoia sets in.” Kurtis uses these moments as a catalyst for his work.
 
NYPH: Describe your approach to photography.
Seba Kurtis: My projects are driven by feelings. I had to leave my hometown for economic reasons, so for the system I was stateless, without permission to stay in Europe. When you face deportation, you realize that everything you have can disappear in just one day. Your lifestyle becomes really chaotic and I vandalize some of my films as a representation of that experience which brings a conceptual element to the work. The combination of art as documentary is not welcomed by all audiences, but my work takes on its own form which is my prime concern above futile arguments.
 
What do you like to photograph? Do you find yourself returning to the same subjects?
At this moment the subjects I photograph are related to my experience of being an illegal immigrant for over five years. I worked with many people from Africa and South America. We all had something in common, trying to help our families, but soon I realized how different their reality was. Some had seen members of their family or friends dying trying to reach Europe, others were locked in warehouses for a year without enough food, some had sold their houses to pay a trafficker for the trip. They spent their time hiding, exposed to racist harassment, no rights, yet still they perceived it as a positive experience, because they could send money back to their families. I believe that all of these stories inspired my work. I felt the necessity to do it.
 
Is there any one thing that catches your eye?
The visual decisions that I make always have political connotations. I believe that all artists have to make political decisions, and the most significant thing about my work is the way I decide to show the stories. I want to evoke personal reflection from the viewer with the kind of conflict that I show, but I’m not interested in showing human suffering or traumatic situations. I think the audience who comes to an art gallery or buys a photo publication needs other kind of stimulation, more cerebral. The media has abused and over exposed photography for so long. They decide what is better for us to see, what is truth and what is not! Today, thanks to artists like Paul Graham, Walid Raad or the duo Broomberg and Chanarin (to name just a few), we have the option of something much more intellectually rich and stimulating for the audience.
 
What do you hope to achieve with your images?
I hope to achieve a certain kind of communication with the audience that reveals how the process of my work is as important as the final images. For example, in the “Drowned” series, I literally drowned my films before processing them on the same shores where thousands of illegal immigrants from Africa attempted to reach Europe, of which many died. As with my film, many of them don’t survive, so some of the visual decisions I shot for the project never made it as images, which for me has the same importance as the ones that I can print or show. They represent all those people that tragically didn’t reach the coast.
 
Why are Festivals, like the New York Photo Festival, important venues for photographers to exhibit their work?
Festivals are a great opportunity for photographers and enthusiasts alike to interact, share ideas and indulge in their obsession; in the sense that even when we are not shooting, we are always talking or thinking about photography. The exposure and possibilities available to the artist through exhibiting their work to such a diverse audience is compelling and I am excited to be part of the NYPH 2009.
 
—Tami Mnoian