Rodolfo's Methods

Loss, Zurich 2021

I / What, How, Why

What

LOSS is a photography project which is made up - so far - of three series of photos that I took over the last three years. The first serie is constituted by several black and white pictures that I took while having a walk by the Zurich lake (Switzerland) and pretends to explore the relationship that I, through my camera, established with what I was feeling back then and the surroundings, while trying to process and get over the death of my grandmother, that had passed away the day before. Curiously there was a connection between the feelings of sadness, melancholy and nostalgia that I was experiencing, and the way the day had dawned in that winter morning: cold, grey and foggy.

How

The project emerged spontaneously in that morning of December 2021. I got up, put something on, took my camera and left my home, towards the lake. Once I was there I kept walking, while I was listening to music and taking pictures. This process made me connect not just with my inner reality, with my feelings, but also with the way the world looked like on that day. Photography was a way of, through the clicks that framed my vision of reality, connecting with the different dimensions that made up my existence. After this, I remember only looking at the photographs a few days later and feeling quite happy with the outcome, not only because they were visually quite appealing, but above all because they meant something to me, they were part of a (never-ending) process of grief. Later, when working on my portfolio, I decided to edit and organize them, in order to create a kind of narrative that described the journey of that day.

Why

I wanted to grieve and to process the loss that I was going through, once that due to several circumstances I couldn’t make it to the funeral of my grandmother. I was living abroad, a pandemic was going on and back then going out and taking some pictures sounded like the “right” thing to do to process this loss, perhaps because photography has always been a kind of extension of me, of how I see and relate with the world, or simply an escape. It constituted a catharsis and, at the same time, it changed the way I relate with lenses, once that it made me realize the role that photography can play in telling stories that can be disruptive and/or relevant to the societies in which we live in.

II / Interview (with Chan)

Chan: What are you making?

Rodolfo: I have been working around the void theme. And it’s basically been mostly about research, like trying to understand what a void means for me and for others and how you can represent that visually. Or, even, if you can do that. And from this starting point, “How can you visually represent a void?” I started to generate other questions, such as: does a void have a color? And what’s that color? Does a void have a shape? A texture? A sound? Boundaries? It’s quite a conceptual/abstract approach, that can go in many directions, and I am pretty much enjoying it, without worrying too much about the outcome that this research may have.

C: Why are you making it?

R: Lately I was mainly working around the topic of loss/grief, that was related with the way that I and others face grieving/mourning processes - and the starting point was a personal grieving process. And one of the last questions that I had while I was investigating these themes was: How can we represent, visually, the void that comes from losing (someone)? Afterwards I just decided to step back, delete the “losing (someone)” part and try to understand what is a void in a more generic, abstract and/or conceptual way. I think that the reason why I am doing it is strictly related with the amount of overwhelming experiences that I had in the last year and a half, once that I was traveling a lot and moving from one city to another. I think that I need this space and time full of nothing (or something that I don’t even know what it is), some kind of emptiness, void, that gives me the possibility to breathe.

C: And is your work more like a research-based one?

R: Yes, I guess that it’s mostly about research. I am just trying to find ways of exploring this theme, because even if it’s quite abstract/conceptual, you can still follow very specific paths, like exploring a spatial, cultural, social or historical context that can be attached to a void concept. So right now I am just trying to find what’s the best way for me to go on with this research.

C: Are you trying to standardize the concept of void for this project or are you trying to use different references/ideas about void concepts, in order to make your own concept of it?

R: What’s interesting about this exercise that we did yesterday in the workshop, when you all had to represent a void in an A5 page, is to realize that, somehow, there is a pattern in the way that we think, visually, about a void. And I don’t want to make it just about me, I want to understand how others think about it. So I guess that is a mix, between how I see it, how you see it and how others see it.

C: What is the image that you had in your mind about the concept of a void?

R: My first idea when I think about it is the image of a building with a courtyard in the middle. And then you just have this space, full of air, full of wind, full of nothing.

C: How does it relate to other things you have done?

R: I think that is strictly related to the loss/grief topic that I was exploring, as I mentioned before. This emptiness/void doesn’t need to be attached to a physical loss, it can also just be the result of someone that disappeared from your life, or from some expectations that you made up in your mind and that didn’t match with reality - whatever reality is - after all. And this generates somehow a void, a sense of emptiness, that you need to process and to get over. So I guess that is everything connected.

C: What are the most significant choices you have made recently?

R: I think that with this project I stopped worrying that much about the final result, and I am just enjoying the process. At the same time, I am trying to explore and to broaden my perspectives and the way I approach my work. So I used to work with still images, but now I am quite excited with trying out things with moving ones. And what’s really interesting about this, which I wasn’t that aware of until some weeks ago, is to work with sound. This makes me go out of my comfort zone and explore not just the way we can experience something through visuals, but also from an acoustical point of view.

C: Are you also trying to use your own experience or thoughts on this project?

R: I think so. It’s inevitable. In the end I am the one doing it, so it will always be influenced by my own thoughts and experiences. In the way I see and read reality. But I think that is quite fluid and since it’s a research-based project, I will always have other kinds of inputs, external ones, like the things that I read or watch. And this will enrich the project.