Personal mythologies: war, balloons, poetry.

©Simon Norfolk/nbpictures

Simon Norfolk is a recurrent personality on this blog, as some of you will know. I remember the first time I saw his Afghanistan work: in a hot-off-the-press issue of the sadly now defunct, but still legendary, Portfolio magazine. I remember where I was standing, as I leafed through the magazine, eager to devour it as quickly as I could before returning to savour individual images at a later stage. I remember the immediacy of the visual language used by Norfolk: the elegiac beauty of the images, the sense of destruction, mourning and loss, the other-worldliness of the landscapes, all hitting me hard, and making me want to talk about this work, to make work, to become engaged.

From the same series, “Balloon Vendor in Kabul” is the stickiest, the one image from the series that won’t come unstuck from my brain. Of course it’s a famous, well-praised, image, of almost mythical importance in the cannon of Norfolk’s work. The grandeur of the architecture emerging through a golden light created by Afghanistan’s sandy mist contrasts with the balloons’ transparent layers of artificial colour; the absurdity created by the juxtaposition of grandiose but broken architecture and anodine but incongruous street vendor throws up an internal dialogue full of questions, and not many answers – who is this balloon seller, who looks like a sad clown? Do the Afghani children growing up in a devastated country at war still muster up the joyfulness required to want a balloon in the first place? Of course they do, but in a war-torn country where poverty is rife, who can pay for the ephemeral fun of a balloon? The added layer of meaning comes from Norfolk’s caption: “balloons were illegal under the Taliban, but now balloon-sellers are common on the streets of Kabul, providing cheap treats for children.”

For me, this image conjures up something appalling and grindlingly cruel at the same time as it invites me to continue to look – and caught in this dialectic, the longer I look, the more questions I ask, the more I think, the more I feel. In 1942, Paul Eluard, the French Resistance poet, wrote a collection of poems entitled Poésie et Vérité – a collection of beautifully constructed, heart-breakingly awe-inspiring, Resistance poems, which invited the reader to engage in the fight to liberate France. Indeed, the poem “Liberté” was parachuted into the Maquis, inspiring the collective fight against oppression. This is engaged art. Sometimes, I am not sure that art should have any other function but to be engaged. And that’s why “Balloon Vendor” sticks.

The Beanshoot Questionnaire: Simon Norfolk

Simon Norfolk’s beautifully crafted images address the polemics of structures of power. In the first issue of the Beanshoot Questionnaire, he gives us a peek at his most recent project documenting the launch of the one of biggest satellites ever conceived, and tells us how he continues to point the finger at “lying bastard politicians”.

What was your first encounter with photography?

One of my lecturers at college showed me a book he’d written the text introduction to, and since it was a subject in my studies we chewed over all the points. Later I looked at the photographs in the rest of the book and they were quite good too! It was book called ‘Gypsies’ by someone called Josef Koudelka.

What was the first photographic project you embarked upon?

When I first moved to London after college I didn’t know anybody so I’d just walk and walk through the city. It was mostly at night after work so I figured out how to push TMZ 3200 to 25,000 ASA and I shot pictures around the West End whilst I walked. All I owned was a Nikon FM2 and a 35mm lens, so I had to make a project that was possible with what I had. It was the first magazine story I ever sold.

How has your practice changed over time?

Well, I use a lot slower film nowadays! Whilst my work looks a lot different to when I left college 20 years ago, I’d say that my recent work draws more heavily on all the things I was studying at college. The day I walked out the porter’s lodge I imagined I would never again need to be mithered by Philosophy or Geography but I see the ghosts of them stalking through my work more and more these days.

Who or what inspires you?

The Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci once said his life was built around the dialectic between ‘the Pessimism of the Intellect and the Optimism of the Will.’ It would take all day to unwrap his idea, let me just say that you can write his words on my gravestone. And I’m inspired by my partner. She’s a doctor (a brilliant surgeon), she deals with pain and death all day. She starts at 7.45 and works 12 hour days and on-call nights. It took her 25 years of exams to qualify. Compared to her, all this art stuff I do is just so much inconsequential bilge.

What keeps you motivated to keep on making pictures?

I turn on the TV news and lying bastard politicians are telling me their lying bastard lies. A short time later, I’m on the internet trying to buy plane tickets so I can fuck up their schemes.

How important is working collaboratively?

I’ve never tried it, I’m a bit of a loner.

Where do photographers go when they die? What happens, or should happen, to their work?

Art is not a mirror to hold up to society, but a hammer with which to shape it. - Mayakovsky

Finally, please tell us about your latest project. (All images shown are from Simon’s latest body of work.)

I saw two shooting stars last night,

I wished on them

– but they were only satellites.

It’s wrong to wish on space hardware,

but I wish, I wish I wish you’d care.

-Billy Bragg

At any one time there are about 8,000 objects orbiting the earth. One is the moon which has been there a Very Long Time: the rest are man-made satellites; junk fallen from satellites; bits of exploded satellite or redundant satellites waiting to fall back to earth. Since the launch of ‘Sputnik’ in 1957, humans have put 24,500 things into orbit. Just because it’s called ‘space’ doesn’t mean it isn’t downright busy up there.

Despite their importance to the global economy and to the military, to my knowledge, no artist has ever been asked to look at the entire production process of one of these satellites from manufacture and testing; to command and control right through to picturing the rocket on the pad. In cahoots with This Is Real Art; the world’s biggest commercial satellite operator, SES Astra, permitted me to follow the launch campaign of their Astra 3B, one of the biggest satellites ever launched but otherwise an everyday, common-or-garden satellite tasked with reflecting digital TV signals down onto Germany and Holland. It would be built mostly in Toulouse, flown from Betzdorf in Luxembourg and launched from the huge space complex at Kourou in French Guiana on the north coast of South America.

Burning through a tonne of fuel every second (!) it blasted off from Kourou in the middle of 2010. After 500 seconds it was out of gas. 3B’s up there now, in a highly elliptical loop; sometimes 36,000 km away and sometimes swooping down to just 250km above our heads. Should you want to watch 350 channels of TV in Germany, Astra will bring them directly into your home.

What is your recommended…

…piece of kit? my Ebony camera.

…time of day? Coming back for breakfast at 7.30am knowing I’ve already done half a day’s work by starting at 4

…website? www.bikeradar.com

…coffeehouse or drinking establishment? I don’t drink so its a coffeehouse: ‘Look Mum, No Hands’ on Old St in London or there’s a coffee shop on Hove seafront that I like a lot but it has no name. It’s the one by the paddling pool.

http://www.lookmumnohands.com/

…photolab?  Spectrum in Hove

…city? Paris. No contest

…magazine? Rouleur

http://www.rouleur.cc/