“Oh, if only it were possible to find understanding,” Joseph exclaimed. “If only there were a dogma to believe in. Everything is contradictory, everything tangential; there are no certainties anywhere. Everything can be interpreted one way and then again interpreted in the opposite sense. The whole of world history can be explained as development and progress and can also be seen as nothing but decadence and meaninglessness. Isn’t there any truth? Is there no real and valid doctrine?”
Photography is one of those subjects that seems to exist in a state of perpetual identity crisis. Photojournalism and Documentary Photography even more so. Sandwiched between fact and story, truth and choice, dissemination and collection, we cannot but ask ourselves what exactly is it that we are here to do? Are we photographers, journalists, artists? And – more importantly – how do we do it right?
These are the first of many tensions that we have been immersed in over the last 18 months and reflect the tensions of our industry, with its one foot in the press gallery and the other in the art gallery. Photojournalists and Documentary Photographers are spilling over into research-led practice, multi-disciplinary collaboration, innovative use of existing tools and imaging techniques, and drawing attention to extraordinary documents that exist freely in the world, unlit. This is no arbitrary phenomenon, it is a response to the world we live in: a world where complexity, binarism, and counter-narratives threaten to completely override any notion of Truth. Where do we, the image-makers, sit within all of this ambiguity, and what is our role in bringing these things to others?
The name of our exhibition, DYADIC, describes the interaction between the smallest social group: two. It is about connection, and about depth. It is Jesus and Peter, Socrates and Plato, wife and wife, a dialogue in which two people are brought into each other’s spheres and have the potential to influence one another. Both parties must cooperate to make it work, or else this basic unit falls apart. Passing, sudden communications do not qualify. So it is in our work.
Across 17 countries and some 852,000+ miles of walking, cycling, and seafaring, covering topics from bees to war and incorporating approaches that are collaborative, multimedia, sculptural, archival and of course inherently photographic, we have explored the tensions in our subjects, our selves, and our roles as photographers. Somewhere between truth and representation, image and text, self and other, our work pursues that dyadic connection, our common ground with the world and with our subjects.
As I think back to the first question with which we entered the course – what it is exactly that we are here to do – I find my answer in our common drive: an indefatigable curiosity about the world and desire to engage with it. The fire in the belly that makes us want to spend our lives looking, looking harder, and delighting in the idea that there is so much out there to see. The imperative not only to see it, but to somehow bring it back, examine it, show it. The mind reels with the scale of it all. As Susan Sontag once said: ‘I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list.’
But as to that second question – how – I think of all the hours spent with photographers, academics, colleagues, writers, tutors, professionals, family, friends, critics, subjects that we have worked with in the last year and a half. I think of all the ways in which they have developed us and we have developed ourselves. All of those dyadic interactions that have helped us to diversify our toolkits in preparation for making work that understands and makes sense of the complex world we live in. To witness, to document, as journalists, artists, photographers.
The master had never heard him speak so fervently. He walked on in silence for a little, then said: “There is truth, my boy. But the doctrine you desire, absolute, perfect dogma that alone provides wisdom, does not exist. Nor should you long for a perfect doctrine, my friend… Truth is lived, not taught. Be prepared for conflicts, Joseph Knecht - I can see that they already have begun.”