Interview with Pachi Santiago

We interviewed Spanish photographer Pachi Santiago, who will present his work Copying Claudia during the second edition of SAN JOSE FOTO. Pachi spoke about the influence of fashion and beauty icons, and how he came with the idea of developing Copying Claudia. His opinion on the inequality between men and women in the photographic medium, and the contribution of photography to gender discussions.

What was your first contact with photography?

I was around 14 years. In the town where I always spend my summers, I played with my cousin. At that time she was like a muse to me. I began to portray her as a vampire-elf, lost in the woods. Then, I photographed all my cousins now disguised as an old and surreal family. It seems innocent, but in this visual riddle that I started creating with double meanings, there is much of what I do today.

Besides photography, you also work with other media such as video and illustration. What attracts you to each of them?

All three are essential to express myself, and at all times I look for the right way, but I like the hybridization between them, and the projects or themes to have a little of each. It gives more plasticity to photography.

But for me the video is very special because always since childhood, I have had in my mind each of my thoughts as a video clip. It is direct, fast and magic, and it captures dramatically you want to say, empathizing with the audience. Photography is the moment par excellence, and edition and selection are everything. And illustration is my natural environment and the first thing I started to do since I can remember. So, it is natural that the three media melt in my way of expressing myself.

Talking specifically about Copying Claudia, how did the idea of making these images arise?

Since I was a child, Claudia Schiffer was the magical fairy who accompanied me through her photos and videos. I created a drawing of a cat woman who was inspired in her. Eventually I became the feline alter ego but still being myself. My passion for Claudia was not so much like a fan, but of admiration like a piece of art, a canvas on which you can paint. So it was always a mirror on which I looked, and interestingly, with adolescence Pachi changed and began to look similar to Schiffer. What an irony, right? Some years passed until I was sure of myself, of what I was and where I came from! It was then that I wanted to copy and imitate her.

It came in a simple way and I enjoyed it very much. Different authors and critics of Spain began to be interested in my work, people with very different profiles and tastes, which gave me confidence to keep on working. I won the first prize in the school EFTI from Madrid, thanks to a series where I copied Claudia in 20 images. But once I showed it, I decided to save it in my studio for three years and take the idea to the obsession. I made more than 300 images, using collage and video to ironically increase the psychopathy.

Fashion and beauty female icons have a major impact on the lifestyle of women. After that immersion in Copying Claudia, what do you think about those standards that are imposed by these icons?

It is true, but since the 90s that impact is increasing more in men. I think at that time people were more innocent and were guided by that. Supermodels were amazing women and not everyone could be like them. Then the androgynous models came, creating expectations of extreme thinness, something that certainly affected negatively many people who did not see fashion as an idealization of reality but as a daily occurrence. The supermodels were super women created for the heterosexual audience. It was brought a model of healthy body that was gradually distorted, not by them but by what would fashion demand later.

Today, singers and actresses with different models of beauty are the new faces that appear in magazines and represent the ideal of many women. The truth is that between 2000 and 2010 the abuse of Photoshop generated a clear public distrust to what fashion and advertising sold about beauty. Nowadays, most of the brands opt for natural images using models with their strengths, weaknesses and a natural skin but, still very thin.

I think fashion will never be a reflection of reality but a dream where the creators move and manage muses at their will and people have to understand that. The best thing is to adapt that world to your own needs and tastes. There is no doubt that these archetypes affect us all: men, women and even children. From the beginning of times we have chosen beauty icons that represent us: in primitive paintings, gods, myths and we always aspire to them.

What do you think can be the contribution of photography to discussions on gender — SAN JOSE FOTO 2016 theme — ?

When you think of the word photography, you imagine a portrait. A being with its own identity. And what better than a frozen and still being to judge and decide what it is for you. It is a fundamental role because to look at a picture invites reflection and gender issues have always been a taboo. We have always been told that everything is black or white, but looking through a photo to an individual, leaving behind sex or human conditions, you can realize that everything is gray, even yourself.

In my case, this gender exercise is something peculiar, because I do not do an exercise of transforming. There are hardly any makeup, or woman’s clothes. At the end, it is staying at an intermediate point between her and me to create this “Pachi Schiffer.” If I were disguised as woman, I wouldn’t be me, and It would be an exercise of finding the seven differences. I think the ambiguity is that the exercise of androgyny is not necessarily transgressive, It can sometimes be in little details, and I want to play with my face from that point of view.

Still, there is a section in the project called “Les comédiens” where I copy images in which she is characterized or disguised as someone who has nothing to do with her. So, I decided to take it to the end also wear wigs and put some makeup on. They are often androgynous images, even for her. One of the most representative is the one that I showed in Mexico, precisely because we appeared both imitating Frida Kahlo.

Do you think the photographic medium is still very unequal for men and women? What do you think you can improve that panorama?

In my generation there are many more women, but it is certainly a fact. I do not know why it can be. Art is supposed to be free and we should not care about that. So maybe it’s a matter of decision. Maybe women have a much more critical mind and think more before showing and working. Or so it seems to me with the women photographers I know. Maybe that insecurity comes from this prejudice and unjustifiable inequality. They are as valid as men.

I never understood many of the divisions made between the sexes. If women are from Venus and men are from Mars, I come from Pluto. I do not believe in those things and even less when judging someone’s work. I never care when seeing a picture if the author is a man or a woman. Sometimes it can be important if the concept of project asks for it, but usually it is indifferent.

Do you have plans for new works?

Yes, I have several but still distant and secret. For now, my work is to move Copying Claudia around the world. I’ve been doing this work for five years, and I have always dreamed that my life is connected to Claudia’s. This “work in progress” evolves and changes with me, and showing it to Claudia is and will be a part of it.