Forty countries, fifteen thousand photographs
On 14 April 2005, photographer Yamandú Roos wrote this diary-entry in Marseille:
The first day. I arrived. I’m breathing again. It feels like there is no breath in Amsterdam. Or maybe it is just me. Whatever.
The friend who had invited him to Marseille went to the banlieues on a daily basis to shoot pictures for his graduation project at an art academy. Yamandú followed in his footsteps that first day. He noted the Marseille street style of 2005: Nike shoes, Adidas football track suits and Looney Tunes socks — pants tucked into them. The passion for OIympique Marseille everywhere. He and his friend met some nice people and Yamandú shot a few pictures of his own. In his diary he noted:
Today I think I took my first steps into the Europeans. Trying to see and feel what to picture and what not to picture.
It was the start of a project. EUROPEANS: one continent, a little Peugeot 205 (nicknamed « The Eagle »), fifteen tours, twenty years, forty countries, 15.000 photographs in color and black-and-white negative, 65.000 kilometers — so far. A few of those photos have featured in past issues of the European Review of Books. They fit the magazine perfectly — it’s the visual answer to that assignment he gave himself in his diary: trying to see and feel what to picture and what not to picture.
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« No concept, » is what he now says when you ask him what he thinks the project depicts. « The magic arises in the by-product, » he will tell you. But what’s the by-product when there’s no frame to step outside of? He cannot explain. It’s in the pictures.
Each time, in every country and situation, he starts over, just following his intuition. A friend refers him to someone in Italy. He doesn’t really click with that person, but he does with someone else, who introduces him to another friend who invites him to a boxing match just outside of Manchester.
He doesn’t speak subsidian, the language required for writing grant proposals. Pitching his work to newspapers and magazines, editors ask: « But what is it about? » The art establishment wonders why he uses color and black and white combined. It’s like they all speak another language.
He doesn’t want to sound frustrated, but he wants to take a next step. Wales is not in EUROPEANS yet, nor are the micro-states. And shouldn’t he have a place for the archive, where he can have exhibitions with the Peugeot 205 in the middle of it all? If only some generous patron could provide a basic income and arrange conservation of the archive. Lately he’s been thinking of China. Maybe someone in China would care for EUROPEANS. Yamandú wouldn’t mind selling Europe to China.
You’re reading this essay for free. With a membership, you can read the full magazine, and you get access to our fabulous Library.
Become a member and get Issue Ten in print as your first magazine, right to your postbox.
In 2015, Yamandú turned the project into a book. Now, for the twentieth anniversary of the start of EUROPEANS, there’s a new publication out. Order at europeans.nu or red-lebanese.com
