A. Willaume: Košice have great potential to become capital of culture

Alain Willaume – photographer and freelance journalist, member of French group of photographers Tendance Flou, an independent curator and photography teacher discipline in Strasbourg school of art. His unusual work develops the wavelength with the whole world, which crosses and occurs several years. Under the influence of long journeys abroad and outside the mainstream, worked on cartography made ​​of mysterious images that speak of violence and vulnerability of people living in the world. Renowned Gallery VU sells copies of his photographs not only in Paris and in France, but also worldwide. At the invitation of Košice 2013, n.o. within the Košice A.I.R. (artists in residence – the artists in residence) visited this peculiar photographer this spring and in Košice.

How did you feel stay in Kosice?

I enjoyed being there. Kosice seemed to me a warm-hearted city with a promising future that you can specially feel amongst its young people. I hope this will grow even further and that the conservative forces will not harm its cultural development. Generosity and boldness are critically vital in today’s world and I felt that these two qualities were potentially here amongst the people and the places I came across during my stay in the town.

Also, I felt Kulturpark was an exciting institution, and the Kasarne/Kulturpark a place full of energy and creativity. Furthermore, the visitors I met there seemed to equally enjoy it as a space of freedom, discovery and friendship.

How do you impress Kosice, people, environment, artists …?

I have had a great welcome from the people responsible for my residency, being the French officials from the cultural department of the Embassy of France in Bratislava and the Alliance française who invited me in Kosice, and also from Miroslava Grajciarova and Ludwig Henne who took me around at Kulturpark.

Regarding my work there, I have been very well assisted by Lena Jacubcakova. She was always here when I needed help in contacting people, finding places, etc.

I made a presentation of Tendance Floue at the Library of Kosice and I gave a lecture at the department of Aesthetics and Art History of the University of Presov.

Among other artists, I had notably interesting discussions and exchanges of informations and ideas with Pavel Maria Smejkal, the leader of the Photo Art Centre Association, Miso Hudak, the co-author of KSC, an innovating alternative guide book on Kosice and with Tomas Timko an art student of the University of Presov.

I suppose you photographed. What specifically?

I created 3 series of photographs :

- a series of approximately 30 portraits called ‘The Warm-Hearted” in Kosice

- a series of B&W landscapes made along the Slovak-Ukranian border

- a series of urban landscapes made in the city of Kosice

As influenced your artistic creation stay in Kosice?

My residency in Kosice allowed me to continue to work on some of my main photographic obsessions:

- the hidden portraits,

- the symbolics of lands ends, edges of the world and other various types of representations of geographical, political or mental borders,

- the notion of fiction in architecture.

 Where we see photos that arose in Kosice?

By the end of May everything should be ready to be shown. But for the moment I do not know yet how the exhibition prints or publication will be produced and where and when they will be shown in Kosice. I hope very soon… 

Some images shot during this residency should be shown this Summer at the Rencontres d’Arles Festival and in the « NoMad » issue, a magazine about to be published in October by Tendance Floue and the Democratic Books Publisher

Would you like to sometime in the future to return to the Kosice?

I do hope I will come back in the future. I have, together with my collective of photographers Tendance Floue, new projects to be developed in Kosice and we hope that Kosice will be one of our favourite future destinations. We would be also very happy if this project helps building new strong links with the cultural partner city of Marseille.

Do you think that Kosice is town of culture?

I think that Kosice has a great potential to be a cultural capital city. Energy and expertise are here, generosity and boldness also. These are all the needed keys for a brilliant future.

Zuzana Lehotská