Simone Steenberg

Visceral, sculptural, and performative - three words to describe image maker Simone Steenberg's amazing photography. Today in Ballad Land, we chat to Simone about the female body, perceptions, and how these apply to her creative process.

[Hey Simone! Tell us a little about yourself - do you see yourself primarily as an artist or a fashion photographer? Do you think studying fashion photography has narrowed your freedom to express certain emotions, or made your expression more precise?] This is an interesting question! I would say both - my job title is a fashion photographer but art plays a massive role in my photography. I don't think there is a need to say “I’m an artist” - it's just something you are. So, to not confuse things, I would probably call myself an image maker or photographer that primarily focuses on fashion. For me, studying at London College of Fashion, the MA fashion photography course has given me more confidence and confined my ideas and visual aesthetic - our course is very conceptual and it overlaps with fine art photography, which I think is great as it connects with my background.

[You have said that you like to gain a visceral response from the viewer – is this a reflection of your creative process? Do you intellectualise your work when creating?] For me it's important to awaken something in people when looking at my work which makes them think about life or create a more visceral response within them - perhaps paying attention to new ideas or emotions, or even rethink what a fashion photographs mean. The messages inside the image that can often be overlooked or ignored. I think it's interesting to challenge perceptions in society, but I also find this as part of my responsibility of creating art. I'm really interested in the body itself rather than the ‘clothed body’, and I think there is a great challenge within this - fashion photography and the body are too often cast as passive, superficial, and associated with commodity and consumerism. Without using the body it would be impossible to sell clothes or to create fashion narratives, therefore I think the body is a key term within photography and it needs to be celebrated as one of the primary aspects for the fashion industry.

[What drew you to focusing primarily on the female body?] As a feminist artist I wanted to create new representations of the female body and challenge the ideas that persist in the media. I love both the female and male body and I see myself taking up the male body in the future. Right now, however, my creative language speaks to the female body. I love all sorts of beauty, but I guess I like to show a more distorted beauty - a different side of the body than the one people normally see. We need to look at things from a different perspective to find previously missed significance of the body, identity, and perhaps even existence.

[You like to play with hyper-sexualisation and de-sexualisation of the human body. Do you have a message that you are trying to portray regarding the sexualisation of women?] I think it is really interesting to portray and explore the body in different ways - that's why I play with the two contrasts. I think they are equally beautiful, which could potentially be my exact message. There is also something more political in it - I try to free the body from the pre-judgement that exist in society and to subvert against gender ideas, both on a serious and more humorous level. By exposing both extremes of the sexualisation perhaps I also try to break out of both and eliminate the dualism in order to find the golden middle ground of nothingness, which could contain important perceptions that we can’t yet enter as human beings. As long as dualism is present we can only explore one thing against the other - it is an interesting area to be understood but also something I battle with and try resolve.

[There are sculptural and performance elements in your work – have you ever worked in any other mediums? Would you be open to this? Conversely, do you think your ideas would translate well in other mediums?] I’m very inspired by performance and contemporary dance, for example the the artist and choreographer Simone Forti. I’m currently co-producing a live performance which will take place at mine and Lolo Bates’s Pink Pistols exhibition. It’s new and exciting for me to work in other mediums! I guess that’s also why I’ve taking on the role as curator for the upcoming exhibition. I’m open to any medium and see myself overlapping with performance, sculpture, video and installation art in the future, but for now photography is my main medium. Each medium teaches and explains a lot about the other, however, it is important for me to choose my prime area of work and devote my life to it while incorporating other elements into my creative process.

[How do you work with your models to obtain the shots? Is this a creative process between both parties? How do you choose your models?] I dance and jump around a lot myself to show the models what I want! I think some models really like that, but others find it really peculiar. I like to push them and make them do things they don’t normally do. The best images are the ones when the model just goes with it and get curious and creates their own interpretations of my concept and directions. I want to meet my models half way to create and work on the ideas together - I believe in improvisation and in creation through spontaneous process.

[What are your future plans?] First of all, it’s important for me to continuously grow as a photographer, meet people and work on exciting assignments. My next project will focus on the environment and fashion - a green project! I feel the power of nature stronger than ever and it’s time for the human race to acknowledge that we need to make change in the way we live to preserve nature. Nature is wild, unpredictable, abstract and expressive (perhaps something I attempt to translate in my shoots and through my models). My friends Lolo Bates and I are continuing the Pink Pistols project on the 18th - 21st June at the Doomed Gallery in Dalston, and we would like to make it a biannual with an exhibition and publication. We are going to Japan in the Autumn where I will photograph performers and their bodies in combination with unique Japanese architecture.