Since 1970, I've been using text and ephemera as well as photographs in order to tell stories of one kind or another. There's a thread that runs through all the work that is to do with bearing witness. The photographs are about asking questions, though, not answering them.
My only agenda is to bring attention to otherwise ignored and shunned lives.
In order to figure this artmaking stuff out, it's trial and error and experimentation, and takes some time and hard thinking. Putting work out in many forms and stages is an extension of how I see things. I feel the art process is best served when it invites comments and constructive criticism from people.
Every single immigrant is part of a larger history that needs to be communicated in all its ambivalences and complexities.
It's always good to find things that you haven't found before.
I'm not a politically radical person. In fact, I'm much more interested in being radical aesthetically.
In Europe, I am an outsider. I don't really understand anything that I am seeing. I can be welcomed into people's homes, I can be met with suspicion, I can be taken somewhere else altogether. There is always wonderment there for me, even if the person I am photographing may not see it or be aware of it.
I use my intuition. I tell my students: use your brains, but also use another part of yourself.
