Connecting Students to the World: Institute of International Studies; University of California, Berkeley

Page 1 of 3

On March 18, 1998, Gilles Peress participated in a chat with students of Gretchen Garlinghouse's advanced photography class at College Preparatory School in Oakland. Preston Tucker, Technology Integrator at College Prep, was College Prep's liaison with the Connecting Students to the World project. Students prepared for the chat by studying Farewell to Bosnia by Gilles Peress (Scalo Publishers, N.Y., 1994). They also studied an online curriculum comprising Peress's interview in the Conversations with History series and two web sites by Peress, one produced by New York University and the other by The New York Times.

Harry: Students I am pleased to introduce you to Gilles Peress, whose work in photography you know and have studied.

Preston: Gilles, welcome to College Prep, in a manner of speaking. Let's begin with Ethan (DonJuan).

Harry: Ready.

DonJuan: Hello, Gilles. I was wondering how you became interested in this type of photography in the first place?

Gilles: When I was in school, I studied political science and philosophy. Given the fact that it was in France in the late 60s, a fairly verbose period both intellectually and politically, I came to a distrust of words and the codes attached to any description of reality. I saw a growing gap between words and reality. I had to find another tool to understand and formalize reality in order to stay sane and connected.

DonJuan: So do you attempt to justify reality in all of your photos?

Gilles: I am not interested in propaganda and didacticism. I am interested in trying through the process of photography to understand and make sense at least for myself of what is out there.

DonJuan: Cool.

Lesley: How purposeful were the groupings in the book (re: on several pages the images all had the same angle, or the same lens, or the same subject, and the book moved from the human activities to the tragedies of physical damage and death)? The internet version seemed very planned. The words and picture combinations seemed very poetic in comparison to the book.

Gilles: As you may have read in the appendix to the book, there was actually very little purpose in the groupings. The book was very much conceived as a raw take, a sequence of work prints, which found its design accidentally on the platen of a Xerox machine -- two work prints at a machine, four for a double page, organized in a short burst of sequences on the same issues, the same moments.

DonJuan: Cool.

Gilles: Yeah.

Harry: Next question.

Ellie: Were you on a "mission" (assignment) or did you develop a personal attachment to the situation that caused you to be there to shoot? How were you involved with the subjects you photographed?

Gilles: As an old anti-authoritarian, I am very bad at fulfilling missions, especially those framed by others. It is all a very personal thing.

Matt: Did you travel alone or in a guided group? And if it was a group, how did that influence what you could see and what images you could take pictures of?

Gilles: I am very bad at groups. I essentially travel alone or with companions I would meet along the road in the haphazard drift of a country at war and conflicting individuals and needs. People come and go. I meet you today and lose you tomorrow.

DonJuan: Have you had previous experiences traveling in countries during wartime --

Gilles: Juanito, I am 52 years old, and I have been traveling for at least the last thirty years --

DonJuan: -- and if so, have you previously taken other photo essays?

Gilles: -- on any kind of road in any weather, in any circumstance. Question answered?

DonJuan: Yeah.

Next page: People; Subjectivity

© Copyright 1998, Regents of the University of California