MariaMaria

7:13:05--MariaMaria want to make the common, special!

Environments are certainly doing something with your mind. They can make you crazy or very calm or you can use them to create narrative photographic works. The last is exactly what MariaMaria does. This visual artist’s duo from the Netherlands is working together since 1995 on photographic staged images. They both always appear in the image; it almost seems that the often common locations in which the duo remains become special. The location gets a name while the actions of the two women are ordinary: they stand, sit, watch or walk. The position of the bodies are well staged and scripted, as is the exact framework of the scenes.

"It’s nice to be in an environment which has certain elements which are attractive to us. The environments we use in our photographs could be anywhere in the world as we stage the vision of the framework in such a way the autobiographic elements make place for the general. Through the anonymity of the environment, the attention goes to the story and the sphere of the photograph. That’s important for the concept we make use of.

We always work with a timer or take similar photographs of each other. The timer gives us ten seconds to position ourselves in the right position and place. Exciting is the twosided part of the moment: to form the image by being present in the scene and being absent by not standing behind the photocamera, looking through the viewfinder. It’s fascinating to see how we relate to each other and the environment. It’s like seeing ourselves in different surroundings from a distance as through the eyes of a third person."

For us as visual artist’s duo MariaMaria we have to collaborate to come to the images we make. With the use of existing locations and minimal operations we create our own imaginary world. The constant factor is the use of the own person in every photograph. Through this we have to work in a unique matter. We make use of an analogue photo-camera and change both, before the actual record of the photograph from position: photographer (subject) and model (object). By turn this is resulting in seeing only half an image (you don’t see yourself in the scene on the moment you look through the viewfinder). It’s like splitting yourself in two: you have to visualise yourself on a place where you are not at that right moment. The mutual communication and the memory are two important components that are indispensable in the way we are working. The timer gives us ten seconds to take our position and attention as a model. Later when we are viewers it’s possible for us to see the whole image.

To keep the image pure and concentrated there is no intervention of third persons. Consciously we choose not well-known environments and emphasize this through framing the image and the use of natural light. We interpreted the autonomous images with common titles as ‘sea’, ‘tree’ and ‘fence and bench’ and the series ‘two takes’ with numbers ‘two take 16’. This to put an emphasis on the unrecognisability and timeless feeling of the image. The environments could be anywhere in the world and become by this elusive, just as the expressionless persons. The anominity of the surrounding sends the attention to the sphere of the photograph and a searching for recognition. The locations where we find ourselves suggest abandonment: natural landscapes, living areas, empty interiors and swimming-pools. Our positions and actions are precisely staged just as the exact framing of the image.

There is a variation where we work without a tripod; the so called ‘two takes’. The ever-growing series has as starting point to make two so identical possible photographs by mutual communication. The photo-camera changes from person after one photo-shot: the photographer becomes the model and the other way around. We both choose a point of view. The model describes her attitude and viewpoint; the photographer the image that was visible in the viewfinder. It’s intriguing to see how similar the images are but still different.
The choice of the analogue photo-camera is a delay of the end-product, to keep during the working process the required suspense. The working process is a layer that shouldn’t be visible in the actual photograph. Through the consistent way of working and the fact we are our own research-material a deepening exists.

It’s a literally changing of identities and the sharing of similar experiences to come to a better understanding. The intensive process of working together comes to expression in the harmony of the image; originated from elements in which quiet a few paradoxes are interweaved. The paradoxes: present, absent; staged, reality; intimacy, public and the suspense that goes with it are necessary to come to the dream images.

For us it’s about experiencing an environment from a reality of the perspectives object and subject. It’s important to articulate this moment. The confrontation with where we are and how this feels brought together with earlier experiences. It’s an elimination to come to the essence. To visualise how we relate as humans to each other and to an environment. The first impression, to be, the moment, the experience and the continuation have to be present in that one image.