2000 Hang In There

Hang In There

2000

When Michael Tay and Gilles Massot met in May 2000 for professional reasons, they also quickly discovered that they shared the same passion: travel, or rather, the Art of Travel. Gilles had been lucky enough to make a living from it for most of his professional life through his work as a photojournalist and travel writer. As for Michael, he had recently open a café in Prinsep Street aptly named ‘Travel Café’. He intended it as a place for travel amateurs and those addicted to travel to find information on destinations around the world as well as meet and share experiences in a relax and informal setting. Gilles was already thinking of presenting an exhibition of travel photographs as a way to celebrate the 20th anniversary of his coming to Asia and Michael for ways of making the café alive with travel related activities. One could say that this was a perfect match.

The exhibition presented from the 28 of March to the 30 of April gathers black and white photographs taken by Gilles between 1989 and 2000. They feature images from Calcutta, Myamar, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and Laos, and focus on human subject. The plain black and white photographs of this show are in line with the purest form of the medium, and this is can be regarded as some kind of back to basics for Gilles; a departure from the graphic treatment of photography he has mostly exhibited so far in Singapore.

In its simplest approach, photography is a dialogue between the complex and ever changing world of forms and its perception as sensations by an individual. This leads the photographer into making some choices that will freeze time with the shutter’s release. The resulting image will then later expand that frozen moment, engaging the viewer into a new dialogue that builds onto the photographer’s own. This silent dialogue is the main concern of the images presented in ‘Hang In There’. Whether considering the couple ‘Subject-Photographer’ or the couple ‘Photograph-Viewer’, the form of the subject implies an inner sensation in turn supported by the form of the viewer. In between as well as within the individual forms, the shared sensations ‘hang in there’.

The show comprises two parts. ‘Hang In There – Part 1’ is made up of individual photographs, often centred on a single person. Taken from street life, they rest in most cases on the notion of ‘decisive moment’ as defined by Cartier Bresson. Many of them are also taken with the knowledge of the subject who sometimes stares at the camera. They thus become portraits. In any case, it is the universal sensation of being as sustained by the form that matters, rather then the social content of the form taken as the reason of existence of both the subject and the picture. The people in those photographs aren’t looked upon as ‘objects’ although their bodies certainly are. They are seen as ‘being’ rather than ‘doing’. Yet, form and sensation are intrinsically linked as a mutual expression of one another.

‘Hang In There – Part 2’ developed of its own accord as a result of the initial selection process. While browsing through the many images to chose from, some of them started interacting, creating again another dialogue between places and times. They might say similar things in different ways; they might complement or contradict each other; they establish links. Presented as pairs, that part of the show is somehow more concerned with the notion of travel photography than Part 1 since the images extend the original journey to a new destination through their juxtaposition. Finally, an installation based on details of the photographs will link the exhibits to the environment of the café normally visually busy with lots of images and information from all around the world. As in the case of a journey, the photographs we bring back from it are selected moments extracted from a kaleidoscope of images and sensations.

Hang In There,
An Exhibition at Travel Café
(Executive Inc.
Magazine, 2000)

Ethnic Myanmar
(SilverKris Magazine, 2001)

Click here to download the book Hang in There

Exhibition Invite

Exhibited Photographs

India

Indonesia

Laos

Malaysia

Myanmar

Vietnam

The Gaze

The Many Faces of Travel

A journey is a process. It begins with mystery and uncertainty. The name of the map are just that, names. The road and the stopover remain uncertain. One might plan and organise. Too much of it anyway is bound to run into unsettling changes and most of all close the door to wonderful unexpected events. As the journey unfolds, little by little, the names become landscapes and the initial mysteries turned into memories. Upon coming back home, we are left with photographs that will retrace the process by which this formally unknown land has become part of our being.

Most of all, the memories of the land visited will be personalised by the smiles, the voices, the way of life of the people encountered there. The Art of Travel certainly is based on our need to widen our horizon, discover different worlds, different cultures. And people ARE what make countries truly different form one another. Although there is something universal to the fact of being human, the diversity of expression of this reality simply is staggering. Actually, one might wonder what is the most important aspect of this point; the similarity or the diversity? This lies as one of the great mystery of the human presence on Planet Earth.

In my 20 years of travelling around Asia, I have accumulated photographs of all kinds. The portfolio presented here gathers a selection of black and white photographs taken between 1989 and 2000. It reflects the silent dialogue that inevitably develops between a photographer and the world around him. One can not remember all the faces, the many faces encountered on a journey. Still, they all participate in some way to the progressive understanding of some aspects of the country visited. And when the time is right, this materialise into an image, a piece of frozen time that will later unfold and expand into a new dialogue with the person viewing it.

Taken from street life, those images rest in most cases on the notion of ‘decisive moment’ as defined by Cartier Bresson. Yet, many of them are also taken with the knowledge of the subject who sometimes stares at the camera. They thus become portraits. In any case, it is the universal sensation of being as sustained by the form that matters, rather then the social content of the form taken as the reason of existence of both the subject and the picture. The people in those photographs aren’t looked upon as ‘objects’ although their bodies certainly are. They are seen as ‘being’ rather than ‘doing’. Yet, form and sensation are intrinsically linked as a mutual expression of one another. Their interdependence too is one of the great mysteries of our very existence.

I like to think that those images are filled with tenderness. Not so much because I think of myself as some kind of a dedicated humanist in love with mankind and fighting for its cause where and when ever it calls for it. No, I’m afraid my concerns are a lot more selfish than that. Or are they? One of my main sources of inspiration is the mystery at work when two visages meet through eye contact and explore each other. What truly happens then beyond the mundane and physical aspect is where I think the true dimension of humanity lies. As a passer-by, I can hardly hope to share anything more than a smile with most people I will meet on the road of a journey. Rather than being a statement on the condition of the world, I look at those images as some kind of a mirror where I try to understand a little more about myself, and in so doing, share a little more of myself with the world.