Namsa Leuba Wants You To Look Again
 Namsa Leuba Wants You To Look Again
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 📸For Your 👀 Only:  Namsa Leuba Namsa Leuba is a Swiss Guinean photographer and photo-based artist currently working in Bordeaux, France. With deep roots in the African continent, Leuba brings a unique perspective of an outsider with intimate knowledge of a place to her photography projects. According to her new book, Crossed Looks, her work often poses "ideological challenges" to other art from that country, such as her images from Tahiti directly confronting the legacy of the painter Paul Gauguin. Crossed Looks features her major projects to date which she has worked on in Guinea, Nigeria, Tahiti, and more.
What was the project that brought public attention to your work?
In 2011, my work Ya Kala Ben. The pictures were of people posed as statuettes, inspired by statuettes in voodoo. When I made that work, I decided to work with artifacts from Guinea. I wanted to recontextualize these statuettes using human beings, and I took pictures of people as statuettes in holy places. Normally, you are not supposed to see the [statuettes] outside the religion. They are supposed to be animated only by witch doctors. In my work, they are already animated because I photograph human beings.
Some people saw my work as a sacrilege, and I got some violent threats, and the police became involved. I think that if I was [just] African or European, my work wouldn't be possible. My heritage and my origin allows me to make this work. They say with a photograph you get a thousand words. What I like in photography is that I can show reality, just one reality [of many]. It's a perfect medium for me to express myself.  Namsa Leuba You have roots in Europe and Africa. How has that influenced your work? I work on African identity through Western eyes. I see this project through the Western eye because I was born in Switzerland and I grew up in Switzerland. Even though I'm half Guinean, I couldn't see through the African eye because I didn't grow up there. I think if I was born in Guinea, my environment would have been totally different. It would have influenced me in a different way.
Tell me about Crossed Looks. How did you start making these photographs, and how did you decide to turn it into a book?
This photo project was my first work; "ya kala ben" means "crossed looks" or "shared perspectives" in the Malinke dialect in a region of Guinea. With my Western eye and my African eye, it made sense to call my book "crossed looks."
I really wanted to do a project with my friends David Keshavjee and Julien Tavelli of Maximage, a Swiss design studio. I used to live with them in Switzerland, and I consider them my brothers. We studied at the same school. They already knew where my work was and have followed me from the beginning. I'm so glad they could make my book.
Maybe there are some pictures in the book that are much more well known than the others. But personally I really like the pictures that I've made in the silk screen.  Namsa Leuba The camera has long been used as a weapon of colonialism. Do you feel that your photographs are an answer to that?
Me, I like to do "docufiction." What I show is not reality, it's a reality. How I decide and what I decide to show people is what I want to show. Most of the time, people think that I saw the reality and I found my model and that's that. But I can be influenced by them as well, by folkloric costume, or I contextualize the costume or change something. All the staging is fake.
When I show my work in South Africa, people think that I'm Caribbean or from these other places. Except people who are from the countries themselves — they know that I've taken creative liberties. I transform one reality into another one.
What is your relationship like with the people in your photographs?
I have found all my models in the streets and in the villages where I work. I like to work with unprofessional models because I have the feeling that I can direct them much more. I like to feel what they are feeling, what they can give to me is so different. They are so much more authentic; they are from that place. Even if to them it feels like the middle of nowhere, to me it's interesting. I like the diversity and exploring time and emotion in my work. Most of the time, people don't understand who I am at first, and they think I'm crazy. I have to really explain my work and the idea to them. People often didn't understand why they were not smiling in a picture. I had to coach them through. Smile during family photos, but not now! Unless you have the knowledge of the art of photography, you know you don't have to smile. It takes some time.  Namsa Leuba  📸MORE FROM OUR DESK 📸 As always, here are some of the best photo stories from around the internet, and what we loved from our desk. THESE PHOTOS PROVE THE TIMELESS APPEAL OF TRAVEL AND TOURISM  Fannie E. Coburn, courtesy George Eastman Museum
DISNEY WORLD JUST TURNED 50 — HERE'S A LOOK BACK  Jonathan Blair / Corbis via Getty Images
A REMINDER OF WHAT CAKES LOOKED LIKE BEFORE BAKING SHOWS RUINED OUR EXPECTATIONS FOREVER  John Zich / AP
5 THINGS WE LOVED THIS WEEK 1. This photo story on muxes in Mexico
2. This exhibition at the Bronx Documentary Center on Afghanistan
3. The recipients of the CreatorLab Grants are announced, as seen in Vogue
4. These 3 badass photographers recognized with the Courage in Photojournalism award
5. Save the planet, cook with kelp
LAST LOOK  Getty Images Tiny baby panda in France? Yes please. "We are making photographs to understand what our lives mean to us." — Ralph Hattersley That's it for this week! Kate, Kirsten + Pia
📝 This letter was edited and brought to you by the News Photo team. Kate Bubacz is the photo director based in New York and loves dogs. Pia Peterson is a photo editor based in Brooklyn. You can always reach us here.
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