Sebastiaan Franco
Belgian photographer Sebastiaan Franco explores the intimacy of a travellers community in Finglas, Ireland. His candid photographs show the daily life, struggles and celebrations of an extended family. PHOTO MEET & NORTHERN NARRATIVES asked Franco about his experience and process.
The work is a long term project based in Dublin amongst two families in the Irish traveller community. Can you tell us how this came about.
Well I was looking for a new project where I could really lose myself, something that would keep me interested for a long period of time. And obviously when you’re obsessively looking for something you tend to overthink and chase subjects that might not really be your thing. So I did a smaller project on UK HipHop for which I spent so much time in London hanging out with upcoming artists, and even though it was fun to do, it wasn’t going to keep me motivated to keep on going back over the course of a few years.
So back home I just accidentally stumbled upon an article about a big fire at a halting site somewhere in Carrickmines, Dublin and then I just went down the rabbit hole researching one thing after another about the Travelling Community. The week after I was on a plane to Ireland and at the very last minute set up a meeting with a social worker in Finglas. Angela was the only person who took an interest in the story and so she brought me down to a family she knew well. After dropping me off near the site she told me to not hang around for too long and I did the exact opposite of that, even spending the night there. From there on out everything just kind of happened so I figured “Well. Buy the ticket, take the ride I guess.”
The project is as much about your immersion as the archiving of the life’s of the families. Can you talk us through how this evolved and it’s ups and downs.
It all started with that first night at the site in Finglas and meeting Paddy Keenan, who I still hold very dear. I started meeting more and more people and there was talk around the site that some guy with a strange haircut and dinky brown camera bag was running around the sites wanting to take pictures. But they also heard the story of me staying up all night drinking and singing with Paddy.
So people were very careful and wanted to figure out who I was and why I was doing what I was doing but the stories of that night sure helped I think, they’re still having a laugh about it almost three years later. So it went pretty well because I started just hanging around the sites and capturing what was there, then I got to the weddings and other family events but after a while you realise you need to actively look for certain things to include in your series and that’s when it got a bit tough sometimes.
It wasn’t so that the people didn’t want to help, it was just they were always off doing their own thing and it was often really difficult to set things up. You might be ‘promised’ something but it could easily just fall through at the end because of various reasons. And that’s not saying they’re not trustworthy because they didn’t do that on purpose, they just had other things to do than dedicate their free time to get me places. So a lot of things took a huge amount of time, calls, contacts and what not for maybe just one picture, which often had me thinking if that one picture was really worth all the hassle I went through.
Another downside was the time I spent there and the consequences of immersing yourself into a group at that level. Obviously you want to fit in as well as possible but then you also have to go back to your own family and friends at some point. And it was only after a while I realised I was a completely different person. It felt like I was constantly switching between personas and lost track of who I actually was. Needless to say, my friends and family sometimes just didn’t recognise me the first few days I was back in Belgium. But on the upside I have made a lot of friends there, people I always keep in contact with just to see how they’re doing, how things are on the site and so on. So I’m very grateful for the friends I made along the way and those stories, to me, are worth more than the book itself.
Anásha has been recently published as a book. How did you find the experience of producing the work in this way as opposed to an exhibition. How was this worked through with the families involved in the pictures.
Well it was actually also presented as an exhibition for the book launch, which was supported by Dublin City Council and hosted by Jeannie Wenham at Studio 10, a beautiful gallery in Dublin. But obviously the book was the main thing. Basically from the beginning I would involve people from the site, I would always make a big selection and print that out to bring with me. I often just gave them pictures they liked as well, by doing that they felt included in the whole process and they could actually always see what I was doing with the images.
By doing that I came across as more trustworthy but it was also a good way of seeing how they reacted to certain images which then gave me an idea of how to present it in a way that it could be properly used. One of the remarks I got from someone in the site, after seeing the book, was that it did feel confronting reading about himself and seeing an unflattering image, but he also appreciated that I was honest in my writing and presentation of him. And that was actually what I was hoping for, it’s not always pretty but it’s still respectful towards the subject, even though it might feel a bit unsettling at first. But the best thing for me was to have some people from the sites be present at the book launch. I think for them it felt nice knowing that people took a genuine interest in the project and them as a community so that was actually really special and made it feel like a collective effort instead of just me doing my project.
What are your plans for the series behind this?
At the moment I’m researching a new project and trying to figure what’s possible with the subject. But I actually also want to continue with this series, with the access I have at this point I think there’s so much more I could do so I’m thinking about where to go with this as well. It won’t be as intense as it was for the past few years seeing as I’m working a lot in Belgium but I know I can always fly over and just walk into the site to pick up where I left off.
But obviously at this point we don’t know when we’ll be able to travel again so I’m just keeping busy with smaller projects here in Belgium, trying to keep a clear view and allowing myself to start bigger projects in the near future with a fresh pair of eyes.
