2023-07-17 19:25:32
The French photographer Charles Fréger, whose images illustrate the first page of the summer notebooks of The cross for six weeks, explores popular rites and traditions across cultures.
After crossing Europe and Japan, and exploring the Americas and the Caribbean, he casts his methodical gaze on the Indian variations of Ramayana a you Mahabharatathe two founding epics of Hindu mythology, in his latest series, Aam Aastha. Produced in India between 2019 and 2022, it is exhibited at the Rencontres d’Arles all summer long.
Each masked portrait, inspired by these two great epic poems, is a discovery, a treasure in which is nested what founds the identity of a collective story. He evokes with us, his tireless work on the portrait, his working method and the documentary value he lends to it.
The cross : Why did you choose “Aam Aastha”, which is translated as common devotion, as the title of the exhibition?
Charles Freger: The term “common” is to be taken in the sense of “collective”. As I moved from region to region, I observed many nuances around the same themes. All the scenes that we see in this series of photos replay, in their own way, moments from these epics that are the Mahabharata and the Ramayana.
Certain figures stand out today. In Kerala, India, where the traditions are very established, the figures, like the Teyyams, remain present and solid, but when the masquerades are linked to smaller communities or tribes with few relays, the tradition can dissolve.
Cinema and social networks also convey a whole imagery. The two big common stories are told today on mobile phones and TikTok with very schematic representations. In this sense, there is a form of standardization. For example, the image of Hanuman has standardized into a kind of body-built ape-man.
Are all these masquerades that you have documented destined to standardize or disappear?
C. F. : I think there is also a part of creation in all these people, people don’t get up in the morning thinking “we must perpetuate a tradition or a custom”. Imaginaries change and the forms of masquerades can be modified, marked by cinema or dominant visual formats.
The influences are quite diverse. For example, when the book devoted to European masquerades, Wilder Mann, was released, it circulated a lot and some groups then inspired each other from a distance. Those located in the Baltic countries and Finland have used the book to reinvent their tradition, to recreate a mythology, a common history.
Another example, which I photographed: if we take the history of Breton headdresses, before the arrival of mechanization in the 19th century, women wore flat, simple and practical, fairly common headdresses. Then lace became accessible to everyone. This corresponded to a period when the Breton countries claimed their identity, they then began to change their form and to diversify them.
In Alsace, it is the opposite, we have gone from a great diversity of headdresses towards homogenization with the headdress with a large knot which responded to the national imagery of the moment. So it works both ways, not everything is necessarily diluted in a kind of standardization, it’s not that simple.
Tell us about your device, the preparation and your way of photographing?
C. F. : My first job is to do a general search, look for what exists and locate it. In India, the material is enormous but not everything corresponded to what interested me. We had to sort it out, then find contacts in these regions to meet the people who participated in this kind of tradition.
Traffic is very slow in India and some areas are difficult to access. We therefore determined geographical areas that I divided into five trips. It took time and the Covid period did not help.
In terms of shooting, I work with a “medium format” digital camera that has a 6 × 4.5 cm sensor, at a fast shutter speed, with studio lighting, outdoors, most of the time. My frame is precise, I then ask people to replay the scene.
The mask, the costume, the adornment, it is the pageantry. What is there to see on the surface of things?
C. F : We might want to tell stories, embark on a photo report, build a narrative but, sincerely, I believe that we cannot get into other people’s heads. The culture, especially the Indian culture, is very different from ours. There is no universality.
The relationship to the surface is a way of clinging to reality. What is there in front of me, I try to photograph it as best as possible. It’s a bit down to earth but that’s how it is, that’s my job. I show things that will be explained, documented, told by people who know how to do that.
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