Chivas Clem is a queer artist from Paris, Texas whose new collection, Shirttail Kin, is a study of the masculinity he sees around him. Texas is a state that often makes the news for its Death Row executions, abortion laws, and border control controversies, and last year outlawed drag performances, before the legislation was overturned for being unconstitutional.

Clem found his hometown hostile when he was growing up, moving away to New York where he lived for years making art. Following recovery from addiction and a nervous breakdown, he returned to Paris years later and began to photograph the local men he hired to work in his studio. The men are all transient in some way—drifters, addicts, felons. A subculture living in the shadow of the American Dream.

Today’s discourse on masculinity usually revolves around its perceived toxicity—patriarchy, sexual violence, privilege, and poor mental health. Clem’s delicate photos portray vulnerability, poignancy, and an outsider sense of fraternity as the men wield guns, shoot up, lie naked, piss, hunt, and smoke.

Shirttail Kin is exhibiting at Dallas Contemporary gallery from October 17, and is Clem’s first solo museum show. I caught up with him for a chat.

VICE: Hi Chivas. How did the project begin?
Chivas Clem: I hired them all to help me in the studio. They were terrible workers [laughs]. They’d just take a nap, or take a bath, or sit and eat a banana. I started taking these short videos and photos of them. You know the famous term “deplorables” that Hillary Clinton used [to describe Donald Trump’s voter base]? I think that was terrible and alienated so many people. I was thinking about what it meant. What is a deplorable? What do they look like? 

I was also thinking about this kind of masculinity that seems outdated, but it’s not outdated in Texas, where I grew up. I thought it would be interesting to document this subculture, which is peculiar to America. A huge swath of the American South is like this. 

What can you tell me about the men in the photos? 
A lot of them just come from poor, rural communities in the South. Not just North Texas, but Southeast Oklahoma and Northwest Arkansas. Not all of them, but lots of them have been affected by addiction, by poverty, by systemic generational abuse. Things that reflect the landscape around them. But that’s not to say they’re just ‘That One Thing.’ I think there’s more to them than that. Nobody is just one thing. One guy that has sat for me for many years is a brilliant, brilliant poet, and a country and western singer who plays like, eight instruments. If he’d been born into different circumstances he would have gone to NYU music school and he’d probably have five albums by now.

Did you set out to offer a different perspective of masculinity? 
No, I didn’t. I didn’t have any set criteria. Of course I know about toxic masculinity, and feminism, and the patriarchy, but I had to put all that to the side, really. I just wanted to photograph what was in front of me. I found there was a huge discrepancy between their exterior and interior. They look like these very menacing, dangerous, hyper-masculine men, right? One of them has a swastika tattoo, which of course, people immediately think of white supremacy when they see it. He got this tattoo when he was in prison. Do I think he’s actually committed to white supremacy? No, not really. It’s just a sign of this hard exterior.

Then, inside, all of these men were very vulnerable, tender, fragile. We can talk about mental health and toxic masculinity and all those things, but I think my work isn’t just about that. It’s about the human condition. An exterior and an interior that just don’t match. 

I’m interested in what brings all of these people and yourself together at this point in American history…
Modern America and, even more generally, middle-class America does this. Right now in America there’s a real crisis of masculinity. That’s because of the rise of fascism in America, and the weird backlash against LGBT people—against drag, against anything that breaks down those traditional things. Those have really been under fire the past five or six years. The crisis of masculinity is people coming to terms with that, you know? 

When you live out in the country, you’re not exposed to things. They all went to church—that still has a real stranglehold on young people—and they all watch Fox News too, which is its own kind of hyper-dangerous propaganda. That’s all about nostalgia for an old America. Where Black people knew their place, where white men controlled things, women didn’t have control of their bodies […] There’s this incredible wave of nostalgia for a time that never really was.

There’s a lot of repression, too. I had this model who was very, very, very transphobic. I mean, it really upset him; the idea of trans people. And then it turned out he was really trans amorous—so he’s actually attracted to trans people. He just didn’t know how to have a voice for that. It’s the return of the repressed. I think the crisis of masculinity fits into that, too. America is definitely at a crossroads and at a dangerous point.

Drug addiction can be disempowering and humiliating for anyone who’s in the throes of it. Are drugs something you consciously wanted to tackle in this project? 
It’s just part of how they live. I didn’t want to edit the work to overly romanticize drugs, but I also wanted to cover their entire journey. I photographed them doing everything: shooting up, smoking crystal meth. I didn’t want to sanitize it at all. 

Tell me about the process of taking the photos.
I feel like a lot of my models are like actors without movies. There’s no script, there’s no screenplay, there’s no movie, but a lot of them really took to being on camera. They rose to the occasion. They liked being looked at. There’s also something about being seen like no one had seen them before. There’s something very poignant about having somebody see you. 

I chose them because they’re wildly charismatic or wildly magnetic. Not just beautiful, but there’s something inside of them. I think there’s something about an imaginary narrative or an imaginary cinema that they can see. That’s part of the work as well.

So in the US you’ve got an election in a few weeks. When it comes to the exhibition, is that on your mind?
The curator really liked the idea of the show being up during the election cycle. Someone asked me if these guys are all Trump supporters. I said they probably would be, because they might want a pathological daddy figure. But almost all of the men in my pictures either cannot vote or wouldn’t vote. They cannot vote because they’re felons, or they would not vote just because they don’t participate in the world like that. They don’t pay taxes. They don’t participate in the political system.

People often get reduced to their political beliefs, but I feel your work offers something different. It shows humanity in three-dimensions. Do you feel there’s joy in this work? 
One of the reasons I liked all of these guys is because they’re free. They don’t follow the rules of society. They don’t feel like they have to go to college. They don’t feel like they have to get married. They don’t feel like they have to have children, although some of them do have children. They’re thrill seekers. Whether that ultimately ends tragically is another issue. There is a certain freedom in their criminality, and a romance in that. They get high and fuck all the time. There’s a beauty, romance, and joy in that. Their lives are just different to mine. I feel that their individual spirits come through in the photos, and it’s not all coded at tragedy.

‘Shirttail Kin’ is exhibiting at Dallas Contemporary gallery from October 17

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This annual ‘Pardon of the Camper Vans’ is part of the wider Pardons Bretons, an ancestral celebration involving over 2,000 processional pilgrimages in Brittany. Romain Ruiz, a photographer who has documented the phenomenon and whose work adorns this page, says this is just an inventive modern way for the Catholic Church to lure people into its flock.

“This benediction is only seven years old, which is very important to me because I’m really interested in how ancient rituals can adapt themselves to reach new people here in our time,” says Romain. “This was the perfect example of how the pardon could take new forms to attract new people into the Church.

“It’s a new leverage of evangelism; it’s a new way to attract people to Catholicism.”

The pardon starts with Mass before the local bishop, Father Yves Carteau, spends five to ten minutes with each camper van-owning person or family. They might talk about tedious things—like where they’ve driven from—or more serious matters, like previous road collisions, or lost loved ones. The priest will then dish out a load of blessings: to the owners, their vehicles, sometimes even their dogs, to help ensure safe travels for all in the year ahead.

“In one of the pictures, which is very powerful to me, the mother is crying, and you can see she’s carrying a portrait of her son. It’s a way for them to share the sorrow,” Ruiz says.

Saint Giles—who, depending on what you believe, was either a hermit or a monk active in the Rhône region of France in the 7th century—has been the saint of Malestroit since the 1400s. And he’s been the patron saint of motorhomes ever since Father Yves Carteau decided he was in 2017, when he sought to revitalize the local Saint-Gilles festival. (France is increasingly secular, with 29 percent of the population identifying as Catholic, according to Insee.)

Small statues of Saint Giles abound, while the camper-van owners take great pride in their mobile homes. “You can see eagles, you can see the on-style design with painting. Every van has its own little story. And they [the camper-van owners] are very, very proud of it. It’s like their house. So it’s their life,” Ruiz says.

The crowd was somewhat mixed, Ruiz says. “There were not too many young people there; they were all retired. Some people are new in town, so it’s a way for them to get into the community and to be connected with other people,” Ruiz says.

Ruiz’ photo-story is part of a wider series on French culture and society, France Parallax, highlighting the country’s regional quirks, which Ruiz jokingly calls the “French Metaverse.”

Check out more images of the benediction below.

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This year, we scoured the globe for 20 rising stars who are revolutionizing photography. Ada Zielińska shoots flaming cars in Warsaw and wildfires around the world. Adam Rouhana documents the joys and burdens of life in Palestine. Carlos Idun-Tawiah finds cinematic beauty in his Ghanaian family’s photo albums. Kristina Rozhkova takes super-raw, sensual portraits in Russia. Sage Szkabarnicki-Stuart makes fun fine art on a Canadian farm. Sara Benabdallah showcases the women who make Marrakech tick.

And that’s not even half of it. Literally, physically, it’s a big issue.

Free copies of will be available at some of our favorite photography labs, bars, and local businesses in New York City and London over the next couple of weeks. Pick up an issue at Bushwick Community Darkroom and photodom in NYC or magCulture and Photobook Cafe in London. And if you miss out on one of those limited-supply freebies, don’t worry, because there’s more good news.

The whole VICE Magazine is coming back, in all its sprawling and salacious glory. We’re launching a brand new subscription to deliver four magazines a year, anywhere in the world. The subscription will also give you access to a bunch of online exclusives—like extended films that are too risque for social media. The first issue you get will be The Photo Issue 2024.

Sign up below to get a heads up on when it launches before anyone else. Then, without further ado, meet the 20 stars of The Photo Issue 2024.

Ada Zielińska

Read more: Ada Zielińska on watching the world burn.

ADAM ROUHANA

ANDRÉ RAMOS-WOODARD

Read more: André Ramos-Woodard remixes Black cartoon history.

AVA CAMPANA

Read more: Ava Campana’s absurd, All-American self-portraits.

AVION PEARCE

Read more: Avion Pearce embraces darkness in their queer Black photography.

CARLOS IDUN-TAWIAH

Read more: Carlos Idun-Rawiah turns family photo albums into Ghanaian epics.

HENRY CRAWLEY

KAROLINA WOJTAS

KRAIWITCH TUNGSOMBOON

KRISTINA ROZHKOVA

LAUREN DACCACHE

LISS FENWICK

Read more: Liss Fenwick turns termite mounds into supermodels of the Outback.

LUIS MANUEL DIAZ

MINH NGOC NGUYEN

ROBERT HICKERSON

SAGE SZKABARNICKI-STUART

SARA BENABDALLAH

Read more: Sara Benabdallah captures the soul of Morocco with help from her grandma.

SHAHRAM SAADAT

Read more: Shahram Saadat turns carwashes into surreal time capsules.

TÔN TÔN BO

TUMI ADELEYE

Plus: 15 Years of Jake Burghart

Read more: Jake Burghart on sneaking cameras into the world’s danger zones.

The post Introducing VICE’s Photo Issue 2024 appeared first on VICE.

Combining original portraits with cartoons from American history, photographer André Ramos-Woodard is redrawing the future to tell a black and queer story that’s distinctly his own.nh

ANDRÉ RAMOS-WOODARD: I’m a trained photographer, but I’ve always liked drawing. When I was a kid, I would watch anime with my cousin and redraw all the characters from Dragon Ball Z as Black people.

Years later, I looked into the history of illustration, and that’s when I found all these minstrel caricatures that I used in Black Snafu. It was 2020, after the death of George Floyd and many other Black people, and it felt really important for me to dig into that.

I was making photographs that I considered celebratory, highlighting Black experiences, then drawing on top of the images to juxtapose the truth of Black people versus the way Black people have been portrayed throughout American cartooning. It’s a little bit of an act of reclamation, using these characters to teach about American history.

But honestly, it got kind of tiring. Stealing these characters, which I would consider detrimental to Black identity, was exhausting. So, I started to incorporate characters from my childhood, like Spawn or Sticky and Fifteen Cent from The Proud Family, that are pro-Black and just powerful, fun, courageous, and celebratory.

Even though I’m using references in my work, I try to fight against the idea that you have to have a historical background to really dig into art. My homies, my friends, my family, I want them to see themselves in these characters. I want them to find something that they relate to.

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Flaming cars and wildfires reveal the sorts of catastrophes that can feel distant but are obviously already here. The daughter of a firefighter, photographer Ada Zielińska explains how she got into watching the world burn.

ADA ZIELIŃSKA: When I got into photography, my first big idea was to stage car crashes. I choreographed scenes depicting the aftermath of accidents and the people around them, which I thought were very cinematic. Eventually, I thought about setting a car on fire. I had no idea how to do it, but I remembered my dad was a firefighter when he was very young. He used to tell me stories about putting out fires in Warsaw. I explained my idea and asked him to help me, and he said, “Let’s do it.”

Dad had a friend who owned a junkyard, so we went there. My dad knew exactly what to do, replacing the gasoline in the tank with water. I, on the other hand, was so afraid of the fire that I didn’t take any good pictures. I remember running around in a panic with my camera in my hand. Still, I wanted to go back to it. So I started calling my meeting up with my dad every few weekends, and we would set things on fire. Mostly cars. 

After about five years of doing this, I turned it into the book Pyromaniac Manual. By then, I was scheduling fires with a team of firefighters and directing them. They used my work for training exercises.

There’s one photo of a steering wheel on fire that I took from inside the car. The firefighters put a belt on me so that if something happened, they could pull me out. But when it got to that point, it wasn’t exciting anymore. It wasn’t dangerous. I knew what was going to happen: the tires and airbags were going to explode, the windows were going to crack. 

So I looked further afield. I began traveling to the sites of wildfires, mostly after they had been extinguished. 

In one sense, I’m trying to find beauty in these catastrophes, however crude that sounds. And, later, to think about what they mean. 

In the modern world, we have control over everything. But when a natural disaster comes, even in the most developed countries, there is nothing we can do. Right now, there’s flooding in Dubai. I wish I was there. People have cars that cost $2 million, and they can’t do anything about it. Their cars are just floating away.

I have this memory from a burnt forest I photographed in Australia. It was all black and still. It wasn’t burning, but it was still super hot in there. And what struck me the most was that the birds weren’t singing. It was complete silence. It was so overwhelming. On the one hand, it was, I don’t know, the worst thing in the world. But on the other hand, it was so beautiful and scary.

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These intricately staged photographs offer glimpses of queer Black lives, both real and imagined. Here, Avion Pearce talks about the power of representation—and the responsibilities that places on them.

AVION PEARCE: In middle school, I found my dad’s little 35mm camera. I started taking it to school, taking photos of my friends and figuring out how to make an image. It was this thing I was doing for the joy of it. I felt like this was a way of creating a world without using language, and that was appealing to me.

It wasn’t until I left school in 2011 that I decided to take it seriously. I started thinking about history. One of the first projects was a fake archive. I created these two Black women in a relationship who were alive in the 1930s and 40s and created a whole world around them. I made stills from what might be a period film of these two women alongside an archive of their belongings: letters, objects, clothing, etc.

I was thinking: I might not have access to a history like this, but I can imagine it, and I think that’s really powerful. It was a way to create something I desperately wanted to see.

Then I turned to photographing people in my community in Brooklyn. I was thinking about survival as the city is rapidly changing, as gentrification and the housing crisis are issues, and a lot of people are being displaced. I’m exploring my responsibility in photographing a community that is trying to survive in this place—which I feel very protective of.

I think of photography as a really powerful tool for documenting and recording a time, place, and people, informing our ideas about these things, and confronting the issues of visibility and invisibility at the same time. I can use this tool to make commentary about the world around me. Maybe it can’t change laws, but it can impact the people who see the work.

I’ve gotten comments like: “The colors are so dark, this doesn’t feel very joyous to me.” My response is that I don’t owe anyone joy. Just because I’m photographing a marginalized community doesn’t mean I have to photograph them a certain way. I think that the images should be as complicated as the things that I’m speaking about. And I think that darkness is so beautiful and rich, and there’s so much there, and so much is revealed with the light.

People feel excited to be photographed in a way that’s more nuanced, poetic, and sentimental, even. That’s all that I want: to create a world and invite people in.

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VICE’s longtime creative partner, Jake Burghart has helped to craft over 100 documentaries in more than 70 countries. Over 15 years, he worked on many of the films that came to define the sort of hard-hitting, courageous, and mind-boggling stories that VICE traded in, including “The VICE Guide to Iran,” Dennis Rodman’s visit to North Korea, and on-the-ground coverage of the 2011 Arab Spring.

On these expeditions, he always shot photos for keepsakes, using whatever camera he had with him at the time: a 35mm, medium format, DSLR, or a cheap point-and-shoot. We asked Burghart to sift through his hard drives and share the stories behind some of these monumental moments.

CONGO

This photo was taken deep in the jungle on the border of Congo and Rwanda. I was with Suroosh, and we were going to interview the Mai Mai, a militia group. On the way there, we came to the last U.N. outpost. We had tea with these guys there, and they strongly advised us not to go any further into the jungle-which we did anyway.

We were quickly captured by a group of teenage rebels with machine guns who took us back to their camp. It wasn’t until months later, when we were home and got all the translations, that we realized they’d said something along the lines of: “Hey, boss, we found these white guys in the jungle. Should we just kill them?” But we had no idea that line had been spoken while we were there.

Our fixer explained to them that we were going to see the Mai-Mai, and these guys were like, “If they’re guests of the Mai-Mai, we can’t touch them. We actually have to make sure they’re safe.” So they escorted us to the Mai-Mai camp. It was an overnight walk through the jungle.
There was a funeral going on when we arrived; fires, drumming, and chanting. They put us in a grass hut with a mud floor and said they’d see us in the morning. This photo was taken the next morning: These are the main guys of the Mai-Mai village and their guards. And this is us setting up for the interview.

EGYPT

This is in Egypt during the revolution. We sort of snuck in—we were there as tourists, but we were filming in Tahrir Square, Cairo, during the day when demonstrations were happening. This photo was taken at night, near the presidential palace—there were all these kids in black masks throwing Molotov cocktails and firing slingshots and everything else at the palace. They had lasers they were shooting into the cameras, and they were getting tear-gassed. This guy is running away from the palace, across the no-man’s land, and the tear gas is shooting over his head. We spent a bunch of nights filming these guys and all of this until we were eventually arrested.

It was scary because we were held in custody in a country that had no government at the time. They had ousted the president, and there was no new president—the country was under martial law. They just sort of put us in a room and began questioning us as though we were spies. Luckily, the producer got out a tweet about us being captured, which became news in itself. The U.S. State Department found out we were there and sent someone to get us. It was the ultimate version of your mom picking you up from jail when you were a kid: To have this black SUV from the U.S. State Department pick us up from Egyptian prison and take us back. They were very cool about it.

IRAN

I’ve been to Iran several times. This was taken on the anniversary of the 1979 Iranian Revolution. I’ve always liked this photo because you see these guys on stage with the yellow flags they’re passing out, and everyone’s got these sort of “Death to America” signs, and it’s all very serious. But there’s also this guy here selling colorful balloons. I like that juxtaposition of the sort of carnival air these balloons give and this very serious Iranian monument on this very serious day.

JAPAN

We were doing a story on hostess bars, weird cuddle clubs, and the different things on offer in Japan. And, you know, the Yakuza runs most of that, if not all of it. So we were kind of trying to get in tight with these guys so that we could film in those places. These guys are all tattooed up, and one night, they started just showing off their tattoos. This guy was showing the full scope of what he had going on, and he just took off his clothes in the back of a tattoo parlor where we were. One guy is smoking and holding a baby, and another guy in a leather jacket is looking on; there are Pringles and weird DVDs in the background. I don’t know—it’s just one of those absurd photos.

CHINA

This was during the Creators Project days. We were doing this big event in Beijing, and afterward, we decided to see the Great Wall before going home. It was a little road trip we did just for fun. This is a random place on the side of the road. We stopped to get snacks,
and this place was there, and Shane ended up playing pool with this dude. I don’t know exactly what it is, just a giant place with a pool table. But I feel like it was classic Shane of that time: Texas shirt, army jacket, earring. He was down to hang with anyone. He loved going to places, and on our way, he’d be like: “Oh, here’s this random guy who has a crazy style and seems cool. I’m going to have a beer and play pool with him.”

RUSSIA

This is a photo of Edward Snowden at the Metropol Hotel in Moscow. It’s this famous hotel where, supposedly, every room is wired. This is where they put the Americans so they can spy on them, at least that’s what people say. I don’t know, I looked around and I couldn’t find any wires. But all the rooms have this really cool old-school Russian vibe.

We met Snowden in secret in this room, and Shane did this really long interview with him. In this photo, they’re just kind of having a moment. Snowden’s laughing at whatever Shane had said, and I just like that it’s a pulled-back look at these two guys talking. Snowden was lovely and cool and had so many amazing things to say. I feel like everything that he said about surveillance is true and continues to come true.

NORTH KOREA

This was another anniversary- forget what for, but there was a major show of force on display. We were in Pyongyang on a media junket. I was with Shane, and we were alongside people from CNN, BBC, and Fox News. The North Koreans were parading their ICBMs and other big missiles, and it was just a really insane thing to witness. Their precision, their marching, how in time they were, and how aggressively they marched. You can see that haze in the background, all from these thousands of guys just marching and kicking dust into the air. There were guys with bazookas marching, women marching, and then guys on horseback, and then a crazy stretch Mercedes with GoPros on it. Absurd things, scary things, so much shit going on.

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Working between reality and fiction, Shahram Saadat recreates the strangeness that lurks in mundane life. In these carefully constructed images, he offers a unique way to appreciate the ordinary.

SHAHRAM SAADAT: Initially, I was drawn to documentary photography and capturing the everyday in its eccentricities. Going from a documentary focus where everything is erratic and spontaneous, I chose to preserve these elements and work toward a more controlled photographic environment.

I began to plan out the photos that I wanted to take, from the concept to the setting. My first scenario was of a friend on a static exercise bike in the middle of a busy road in London—that acted as proof that I could execute the narratives that I was beginning to build in the way that I wanted. So I started organizing further shoots with a wider creative team to help elevate the final outcome.

Many of my projects have been studies of people from certain areas, whether it be the people from Bath interacting with an electrostatic machine or people from Norwich posing in target practice posters. I like photographing people who haven’t necessarily been in a controlled photographic environment before. Their interaction shifts between each image as they become more at ease with the setting, and it brings a freshness more in keeping with the documentary aesthetic. Every project still reflects my interest in this field but in a much more refined environment, putting the concept first and the image second.

The apparatus and the dichotomy it poses have always intrigued me. On the one hand, I feel it creates a useful filter between the photographer and the subject, giving them a sense of distance in the moment. At the same time, it empowers and enhances the creative possibilities. The camera allows the subject to be uninhibited and lets them express themselves freely.

My recent study, The Whale, depicts people going through a carwash in southern England. I was interested in exploring whether there was a moment in our lives when we could afford to be guilt-free about not optimizing our time effectively. Initially, I thought about showering and teeth brushing, but even those actions get rushed sometimes. Then came the carwash, a three- to five-minute window where you are forced to remain in your car for the cycle. Allowing you to zone out, argue, kiss, or sing in order to pass the time. A moment of respite.

Ultimately, my practice is inspired by human idiosyncrasies—I channel the erratic spontaneity of documentary-style photography into staged scenes, underpinned by conceptual thinking.

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Sara Benabdallah’s photos sing with vibrant colors, depicting ancient architecture, contemporary textiles, and the women who make Marrakech tick. After spending time in the U.S., here’s how she fell back in love with her home country of Morocco.

SARA BENABDALLAH: I grew up in Marrakech, in the Medina, where my parents had a business renovating historic properties. My dad would renovate one while we lived in it, and when he finished, they would rent it to foreigners. Most of the people who came in the late 90s were artists, and in the summer, they would teach my sister and me. I was always known for being a photographer, in a way. That was my identity from day one.

When I was young, I didn’t have many friends who did arts, though. I was kind of an outcast. Plus, there was the whole sexist vibe in Morocco, especially at that time—much more than now. I didn’t feel comfortable as a young woman. I knew I wanted to go to America. When I left, I didn’t look back.

I spent some time in New York and then moved to LA. I started dating an American from the Midwest, so we traveled a lot. I saw really beautiful, wonderful things, but I also saw the reality of a lot of things.

After five or six years, I started to slowly get depressed. I felt disconnected from my roots. It was such a big dilemma because I knew so much about America, but when people asked me about Morocco, I didn’t really know a lot. It got to me, and I thought maybe I should go back.

We moved back two years ago, and it’s been really great since then. I was able to reconnect with my family. We’re working on a tea house in the oldest neighborhood in Marrakesh. Everything I thought I hated, I started to love. There are these abandoned buildings near my home, and I remember being like, “Oh, these are ugly,” and now I’m dying to go and shoot there. There are so many interesting things I would have never looked at before.

Sometimes, my best ideas come from sitting with my grandma, making bread or planting stuff. She’s been my muse. I’m very lucky, to be honest, because in Morocco, you rarely find a mother or grandmother willing to be photographed. But she’s very creative. Sometimes, going to art school can put you in a box, and she really helps me get out of that box because she has no box. When I get into a creative block, she’ll be like, “Let’s just go shoot. Let’s go, let’s do it.”

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In Australia’s Northern Territory, marked by climate predictions as “uninhabitable” in the near future, Liss Fenwick shoots fires, termites, and tree bark like it’s an ad for high fashion. Here’s why.

LISS FENWICK: Growing up, I was a bit of an outcast in this place. It’s pretty gritty. I found an analog SLR camera, 35mm. That became my way of connecting to the world and to the land I found myself in.

I initially thought about landscape photography as a protest. If you shoot these trees and termite mounds using the aesthetics of fashion and commercial photography—like making a sexy portrait of the landscape—it’s a way of protesting our anthropocentric obsession with humans. It’s not all about us. When you’re dragging out lighting to a termite mound as a kind of pilgrimage, that stuff becomes absurd.

Humpty Doo and the Northern Territory were settled very late in the British Empire. And I’m a settler photographer— my ancestry is white settlers on unceded lands of the Larrakia Wulna people. Increasingly, I think we need to confront that inheritance. The land is still being colonized by these neoliberal mining corporations. They don’t give a shit about this place. It’s just about profits.

What I love about photography is that it allows proximity to the real. You have to be there, a part of it. I love the land and interpreting the mystery and the unknown. You can make the familiar transcendent through the image, imbuing it with meaning through light or perspective. I think that is where the mischief in photography is, too. It’s not trying to sell anything. It’s just joyful. Taking these pictures, it’s not standing back and imagining. It’s actually getting in the heat and the dark and allowing these things to affect you.

I think, rightfully, it can be tricky to talk about connection to land as a white person. But I’ve also read First Nations scholars like Bruce Pascoe and The Gay’Wu Group of Women, and they say whitefellas need to develop an understanding of land and a connection to land. That’s the only way we’re going to stop the planet from continually catching on fire and being exploited. So I like to make efforts towards that.

There’s this incredible Australian philosopher called Val Plumwood. She was canoeing in the Northern Territory and was attacked by a crocodile. She was pulled under the water, and they did a death roll. Her chances of surviving were very slim. Later, she wrote about the experience. In that moment, she said, she went from being a person, being herself, to being prey for this other animal. She called it breaking “the astrological delusion” that we’re the center of the universe.

That’s something we all need to be doing regularly, so we understand the interconnectedness of all things. It’s the only way we’ll get it into our heads that we can’t just consume everything all the time.

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