7 Days
Interview with Léonard Rossi on the occasion of the exhibition of the Prix Photoforum 2020.
Can you tell us briefly about the project currently on display at the Photoforum?
7 Days finds its origins in a part-time job in a suburban gas station that I had the opportunity to work during the last years of my studies. As an employee, I experienced the very slow temporality of this business. This pushed me to be a witness, an ‘active observer’ of sorts of this particular place, which sees a very diverse clientele passing through, with its multiple behaviours. So I started to question myself in a very free and informal way about the people who frequent this place and this place itself. That’s where it all started, through my curiosity and my interest in questions related to narration.
What does it mean for you to exhibit this project? What would you like to convey to the audience?
Having spent a lot of time experimenting around the questions that interested me in this project, I found myself constantly second-guessing the elements that were constitutive of the project, and I thus had a lot of doubts about its reception by the audience. It is therefore gratifying for me to see that this subject and the prism through which it is being approached resonates, as this is the first time this project has been presented. As this work is meant to be published as a book, so that to think of it in terms of an exhibition is also a very captivating challenge.
For me, this last element is essential, as I seek to involve the viewer in these images through their singular evocative power. The scenes that unfold find their origins in the individuals who take part in them and in the elements that are in the image, without explanations. This approach lets the viewer make their own hypothesis as to why they are seeing what is happening. On the one hand, there is something pleasant about imagining all sorts of stories with what we are given, in an almost child-like way. On the other hand, there is a part of the projection of our own person, our behaviours and our lives as well as what we experience as a society. It is obvious to me that this form of storytelling, which asks the public to make an effort of imagination — or not — is an important part of this work.
What inspired you to do a project about this particular place?
Originally, I didn’t have any specific idea in mind, although the imaginaries around gas stations are abundant, and gas stations evoke a whole range of things in a multitude of people, through popular culture and the arts, as well as through their primary function. Then, the visual is primordial in my opinion, and I think that there is an attractive side to gas stations, which does not leave me indifferent. In a corner of my head, I found interesting the idea of doing a work around the environment of such a place, with the intention of ‘telling stories’ without being naive. A form of an anonymous testimony about this place and the people who visit it. Otherwise, in a broader sense, the social and consumer themes concern me a lot, and such a place is iconic, almost mythological, of our consumerist era.
Working there, I thought that the opportunity to do a project on this place was too good to pass. How could I not try to make a work around this place?
The concept of ‘non-places’ by Marc Augé s is central in your project. Could you explain further this concept and how it relates to your project?
With his idea of ‘non-places, this French anthropologist defines spaces built by humans, in which individuals remain anonymous. There, they have only a consumer or utilitarian relationship to these specific places, which have no real social vocation. They are, for example, places of transit, supermarkets or even gas stations. The present world, through its multiple faces, has encouraged and still encourages the development of such infrastructures that disregard the basic social needs of human nature. This is a very brief summary and full of shortcuts, but you can get the idea.
I like to think that Marc Augé would consider this simple establishment of fast and anonymous consumption a ‘non-place’, where interactions between individuals are limited to the essential. I worked with this idea in mind, while seeking to temper it. It is true that a petrol station does not encourage exchanges like a pub or a wedding, but I discovered a place that was sometimes close to a social crossroads with its codes and rules, its regulars and its countless anecdotes. However, this does not prevent the feeling of a ‘non-place’ that emanates from this type of business, which remains a place of transit and rapid consumption, and which comes close to the author’s concept.
You worked with a very large amount of CCTV footage. Why did you choose those particular images; did you have a particular narrative in mind?
As I said before, the project has evolved and been questioned through multiple trials. But video-surveillance, with its aesthetic that I find very appealing, has an interesting voyeuristic side. It allows us to have images that we could not necessarily obtain by other means, because of its primary use. It opens a fascinating door when you think about the notions of ‘non-place’ and anonymity. But above all, these surveillance camera screenshots invite, in my view, to ‘speculate’ on their content. Of course, the whole thing has always been guided by this desire to ‘provoke’ stories in the viewer, through these sometimes almost dreamlike images, which do not let any information about them show through.
Also, I see links in terms of temporality, between the ‘modified’ time of this job, this strange relationship to time that such devices offer us, as well as the time that was necessary for my approach. It was a slow and sometimes tedious process, but I’m glad I did it. In the end, it was those hours behind the counter that gradually began to make me consider this place by exploring it through the unique narrative possibilities of CCTV images. And it was through working with this tool that I became convinced to combine it with my very free and experimental — in my eyes — approach.
What are you currently working on? Can you tell us about your current or future projects?
At the moment I am focused on the publication of 7 Days, which has proved to be more complicated than expected and more difficult to execute due to the current sanitary context. However, it’s coming along nicely and I hope to get into production in the next few weeks!
Concerning my projects, I am working on the issue of advertising in the public space in Switzerland. Unfortunately, the very heated climate between the authorities and anti-advertising activists in this region has led to this project being stopped — which I regret — and which I hope to be able to continue. In the meantime, I am planning to continue exploring the activist issue, as it is close to my heart, in another form but this time using a photo camera! But for the moment, I am focusing on a project concept on a very current theme, which is likely to be even more problematic in the decades to come. But I won’t say any more about it, because I’m only in a reflection phase at the moment.
Otherwise I’m continuing a long term project, Bastard Kid or the death of innocence where I’m freely experimenting with the narrative potential of photography in a very personal way. I’m progressing very slowly, but I like to think that it’s a work that requires a particularly long time and on which I try not to put any pressure on myself, willing to experiment and enjoy myself above all.
The exhibition Prix Photoforum 2021 is presented at Photoforum Pasquart, Switzerland, from 3 March to 4 April 2021.
