‘Impossible’ Interview with Claude Peschel Dutombe
Today, we are delighted to publish our eighteenth ‘Impossible’ article (to view the others, go here), this time we are featuring the son of a playwright and a film director, Claude Peschel Dutombe. Born and raised in Berlin and Dutombe has made Asia his home for more than 15 years now. Growing up with strong creative influences, his artistic vision was shaped early on by exposure to filmmaking and extensive travel — and he has mostly made Asian and Middle Eastern themes the subject of his creative work ever since.
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Claude has always been fascinated with the tonalities and distinct characteristics of instant film and has used them for many projects applying different experimental techniques. He became one of the very first Impossible pioneers shortly after the first generation of film was launched. His photographic series ‘Dreams of a Distant Place’ commemorates the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, taking us back to Claude’s childhood years when he grew up in the 70’s-80’s behind the iron curtain of the cold war in East Berlin.
“For this project I was looking for dream-like visuals so the idea to use Impossible film was an easy choice. As a young boy I would daydream of all the far away and mysterious places people who lived in the Eastern (communist) bloc were not allowed to visit. My longing for discovery manifested itself in many hours and days spent with my postcard, coin and record collections from all corners of the globe, or reading books with stories about places I wished to be able to see with my own eyes. This art project is an attempt to reconstruct the visuals of my childhood dreams when my mind started wandering, driven by a politically suppressed Wanderlust. All photographs taken for this series are of foreign looking sceneries or objects but are missing a factual definition of place and time since they represent a boy’s imaginations of places he has never been to.” Claude explains.
Image above – ninetych #10/#11/#12
Claude has used virtually every generation of film for this project with all their different characteristics and this is a long-term project that he has been working on for years. The visible chemical residues, the uneven frame and surface cracks of the instant film support the concept of creating those dream-like scenarios and break with the reality of the photographed subject.
Image – Dreams of a Distant Place #25
In order to emphasise on those material specifics Claude had the original shots scanned on high-res drum scanners and then made large size prints of them. Dream sequences have been achieved by combining three shots together as triptychs rather than having single shots stand by itself. Some of the triptychs even have two “siblings” so that they can be presented as ninetychs representing a more complex dream with relating visuals.
Image – Dreams of a Distant Place #37
Image – Dreams of a Distant Place #19
“I hope that Impossible will be around for many more years to come because the project is far from being finished. In fact I think that it will continue all through my artistic life as this series is the conceptual center piece which explains and connects other projects I am working on.”
Explore more of Claude’s work on his website and blog, or follow news and updates for future works on his Facebook and Instagram.
Image – Dreams of a Distant Place #34
Image – ninetych #31/#32/#33
Image – Dreams of a Distant Place #35
Image – Dreams of a Distant Place #17
Image – Dreams of a Distant Place #08
Image – Dreams of a Distant Place #02
Image – ninetych #28/#29/#30
Image – Dreams of a Distant Place #38
Image – Dreams of a Distant Place #01
Image – Dreams of a Distant Place #39
Image – Dreams of a Distant Place #40
Image – ninetych #13/#14/#15
Joanne Carter
Joanne Carter, creator of the world’s most popular mobile photography and art website— TheAppWhisperer.com— TheAppWhisperer platform has been a pivotal cyberspace for mobile artists of all abilities to learn about, to explore, to celebrate and to share mobile artworks. Joanne’s compassion, inclusivity, and humility are hallmarks in all that she does, and is particularly evident in the platform she has built. In her words, “We all have the potential to remove ourselves from the centre of any circle and to expand a sphere of compassion outward; to include everyone interested in mobile art, ensuring every artist is within reach”, she has said. Promotion of mobile artists and the art form as a primary medium in today’s art world, has become her life’s focus. She has presented lectures bolstering mobile artists and their art from as far away as the Museum of Art in Seoul, South Korea to closer to her home in the UK at Focus on Imaging. Her experience as a jurist for mobile art competitions includes: Portugal, Canada, US, S Korea, UK and Italy. And her travels pioneering the breadth of mobile art includes key events in: Frankfurt, Naples, Amalfi Coast, Paris, Brazil, London. Pioneering the world’s first mobile art online gallery - TheAppWhispererPrintSales.com has extended her reach even further, shipping from London, UK to clients in the US, Europe and The Far East to a global group of collectors looking for exclusive art to hang in their homes and offices. The online gallery specialises in prints for discerning collectors of unique, previously unseen signed limited edition art. Her journey towards becoming The App Whisperer, includes (but is not limited to) working for a paparazzi photo agency for several years and as a deputy editor for a photo print magazine. Her own freelance photographic journalistic work is also widely acclaimed. She has been published extensively both within the UK and the US in national and international titles. These include The Times, The Sunday Times, The Guardian, Popular Photography & Imaging, dpreview, NikonPro, Which? and more recently with the BBC as a Contributor, Columnist at Vogue Italia and Contributing Editor at LensCulture. Her professional photography has also been widely exhibited throughout Europe, including Italy, Portugal and the UK. She is currently writing several books, all related to mobile art and is always open to requests for new commissions for either writing or photography projects or a combination of both. Please contact her at: [email protected]
