Ellie Uyttenbroek and Arie Versluis lecture

For 13 years Ari Versluis and Ellie Uttyenbroek have been documenting street fashion in cities around the world. Beginning in Rotterdam, they have now canvassed the street of London, Beijing, and Cape Verde among many others, and been featured in many magazine and galleries around the world. Their method, as you will soon see, is highly stylized, unique and beautiful. And unlike most of not all other street photography, it is very probing: it questions our notions of identity, uniformity, and culture. INFLUECE MAGAZINE has said their work is “a direct assault on the mythic formula that photography plus the street equals authenticity.”

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS:

1. When I look at the work, I think I can immediately understand your function Ari as photographer, I think that this is because, even in the age of Photoshop, we are conditioned to believe the camera does not lie. But your function Ellie, as a stylist is more curious – could you explain how much your work influences the final photograph?
Ellie’s role seems to be in initially identifying the subject matter for each series and recognizing fashion, body type and body language traits that define a group. Additionally she will make minor adjustments to these traits during photography to realize their uniformity more strongly. This does of course corrupt the documentary integrity of the work, but then they don’t claim to be objective documentary makers.

2. All the photographs express the concept of uniformity, but also differences within tight parameters. For example, Morrocies you have the subjects wearing street wear so similar it almost becomes a uniform, whereas in Combat I noticed that body types are perhaps more a uniform than anything else. Is the point of the project, to expose unexpected expressions of uniformity?
I think yes, that is the primary, albeit possibly subconscious, intent of their work. They did not say this in so many words, but I think it’s a reflection of their Dutch-ness – a desire to dryly critique an institution that expresses the idea of individuality by mockingly showing that it does the opposite.

3. How long does it take to assemble a complete 3 by 4 block? What this more difficult working outside of Rotterdam?
Each block or series takes a different amount of time depending on the availability of subjects and their willingness to come into the studio. So for slutty teenage self-obsessed girls its no problem, but its harder with Muslim women who need to ask permission from their patriarchs. One series, Morrocies, took almost a year to complete.

4. In many, if not most blocks, you get the feeling that you set up a photo studio on the street and invite people in as they walk past. But for others, such as Formers, which I notice features Li Edelkoort, it must be a different system, can you explain that?
Actually the majority of the work involves inviting people into their studio over an extended period of time. So the sense of “street” probably derives more from the fashion application than anything else, the studio backdrop being sufficiently neutral although somewhat artificially contrived.

5. In an interview with the Guardian English newspaper, you mention that you like to dress similar to those you are taking photographs of? Can I ask, isn’t this practically very difficult, and doesn’t this possibly put you in uncomfortable situations of looking like you belong but not in other contexts (like the way you speak?)
Sorry this was not addressed in their lecture so I don’t know how this is managed, other than to say that they are outspoken and direct like many Dutch people and probably don’t have any problem sparking up conversations with strangers.
6. In many articles about your work, the word “language” is used frequently, and of course the way we dress is a visual language, but it occurs to me that fashion does not function exactly like language – for example, language and accents are strongly related to geographic areas, where fashion has more of an ability to cross geographic borders and be contained by cultural, gender or age borders. Do you see the work you do as a kind of cartography, a mapping of these borders?
Ari and Ellie confessed early on in their lecture that they are not themselves prone to sociological analysis of their work. Which does mean that I cannot. So yes, I think their work does create a social cartography, an interesting one because it is so explicit. Fashion has always been used to distinguish social groups from one another, but the presentation of this critique usually relies on the single exemplary image, so by visual grouping Ari and Ellie make this critique immediately tangible.

Prepared and written by Guy Keulemans, M&H masters program, Design Academy Eindhoven.