Joselito Verschaeve plunges us into a faintly recognisable world of rocks, people, animals, and objects with his two photobooks, If I Call Stones Blue It Is Because Blue Is The Precise Word and As Long As The Sun Lasts, where the images reach out as if pulling us in to experience their textures, smells, and sounds. Each one invokes a feeling of recognition, and their compilation pushes the audience to develop their own stories. As we imagine tasting the apple or feeling the bird’s beak peck our hand, we become immersed in our own constructed worlds.
Vershaeve, a Belgian photographer specialising in photobooks, captures snippets of the daily – maybe even at times monotonous – objects and landscapes that encapsulate our lives. Despite coming from opposite ends of the world, each image flows into the next, forging a narrative. As human turns to rock turns to dog turns to cliff, our own humanity is in the spotlight of Verschaeve’s work. More specifically, how we as humans are changing the world around us. We talk with the artist about his early successes, where inspiration comes from (and where it leads), and the moments of hope in a dark and dystopian backdrop.
Do you have any rituals that you practice when taking photos or creating art?
I wouldn’t call them rituals, but I do have some habits that work best for me while photographing, like: no music or headphones when I’m on a location or putting my viewfinder in black and white. Other mediums like cinema and literature also trigger the urge to create.
Did you ever experiment with other art forms like sculpture, painting, writing, etc? What made you pursue photography?
I’ve always drawn a lot, made sketches and small storyboards. But photography was the first medium I felt kind of confident to use as a steady art form for my type of storytelling. I do sometimes draw scenes or create props in service of a photograph. So other mediums continue to influence the work.
Your first photobook, If I Call Stones Blue It Is Because Blue Is The Precise Word, was published right after completing your Master’s. How do you feel that first publication contributed to your career progression?
It definitely gave me a boost of confidence, made me trust my own work more, and see myself more as an artist. Even though achieving a master's should be a boost on its own, seeing your work published in the actual photobook landscape (especially by a publisher like Void) is a different type of validation.
Your primary form of displaying your work is through photobooks, what draws you to this medium over others?
So far, photobooks feel less fragmented than having images on the wall. Maybe that changes in the future, but as of now I still think in terms of publications. They make more sense to me and help me to make sense of the work I make. It’s putting order to something that can get out of hand real quickly.
You said that you were first inspired by Evidence by Larry Sultan and Mike Mandel. What about their work was most impactful for you?
I think their work gave me a tool to work with. To see that projects don’t have to come from one place or one context to make a cohesive artwork. Because of their work I feel more confident in making images all over and still make them come together in the end. That might sound like a simple given, but it really sticks with me throughout my practice.
While I was looking through the photographs in If I Call Stones Blue It Is Because Blue Is The Precise Word, I had an eerie, almost ominous feeling creeping up on me, but the touches of light also pushed a sense of hope I wanted to cling to. How did you find this balance between the dark and dystopian with hope and delicacy?
That aspect stems mostly from cinema and literature. For me the most memorable moments happen in those hopeful moments, when there is a turnaround in the story. It’s great when there is a good balance between the serious undertones in a story and the lighthearted moments. I think animated series or films are very good at finding this balance.
You mention that you want the photos to be detached from their context to be able to combine images from different settings into a cohesive narrative. How do you think this allows the audience to connect with your work?
I really hope it allows them some form of connection. My ideology is to have images that, when given to someone else, they could make a story. Kinda like getting all the frames for a storyboard which you have to order yourself to find the pacing that fits your story. I think that’s why I love working with Void, because they make the work come together in their way.
“For me the most memorable moments happen in those hopeful moments, when there is a turnaround in the story.”
Are you yourself able to detach the context of the images and create new narratives, or do the photos still carry the meaning of their environment regardless of their arrangement in a photobook?
It’s fifty-fifty, some of the images come from or become memories that I look back on, and others have a more functionality-purpose to the story and come from a missing-images-list in my notes. When seeing them in the photobook, I do try to look at them as separated from those emotions and more as a ‘how would others see this story’ way of looking at them.
You said in an interview that you are triggered by your environment to take photos, but that you also think about how the photo can fit into a sequence for a photobook. How do your impulses to take photos contribute (or complicate) the book sequence in your mind?
I try to work within certain themes, and some environments work better than others. I’ve worked a lot in Athens over the last years because Void is based there, but also because history makes up a big chunk of my work. Back home, I get to make images that fit other parts of the story. And then there are all the images that reveal their importance once they’re placed next to other pics in the sequence or archive that I’ve built up to that point.
You mentioned that the title, If I Call Stones Blue It Is Because Blue Is The Precise Word, is a reference to a Flaubert quote from a Raymond Carver book. What does this quote mean to you? And what does this timeline of inspiration and referencing – from Flaubert to Carver to you – symbolise?
I think everybody gets influenced by others, consciously or subconsciously. So it’s nice to reference something that’s already a reference itself. Not saying that it will live on because of me, but rather showing that different works can grow from the same influence. I think it’s such a nice given to cross-pollinate the things that influenced you instead of gatekeeping them.
In As Long As The Sun Lasts, I noticed many repeating silhouettes and forms crossing the confines of the subject, from human to rock formation to dog. Is this a reference to the Anthropocene? Could you explain your choice to juxtapose the human with the natural world in these photos?
Yes, the new book with Void uses images of nature, ruins, and human interventions to create a fictional narrative. But even as a fiction, it reflects on a time where our human actions leave visible, lasting marks on the world. The title reflects this duality or juxtaposition of humans and nature.
You mention that your work can represent threats, problematic times, and history while also emphasising simple pleasures and common living. Can you elaborate on this idea of common living and simple pleasures being a factor for connection?
To me, common living means recognising what you got and understanding that not everyone has the same sources or security. I feel fortunate for the opportunities and experiences I’ve had, and I’m looking for ways to share those with others. In dystopian stories, characters often only take action when threats or problematic times start happening to them, even though others have been suffering long before them. Yet, the most hopeful moments in those stories come when they do come together or find connections to help each other.
Four images from As Long As The Sun Lasts were featured in the Billboard Series #33. What was the process of choosing them and finally seeing them displayed like? What was the importance of having two large images and two small images to mimic the feeling of a photobook?
As mentioned before, my way of creating is photobook-focused. And getting the chance to do a Billboard Series with Artlead and 019 in Ghent was an amazing experience, but it’s again very fragmented if it were to be only one image on the billboard. That’s why we sat together and kinda tried to mimic those photobook spreads and offer a little more context to the images and reflect the way I usually build a visual sequence.
You were part of a movement of artists who participated in Postcards for Palestine. What does it mean to you that your art can contribute to a project like this?
As someone who can feel very strongly about these subjects and also want to contribute to making change, I think it’s incredibly meaningful to be part of it. It’s even greater that people like Peter Watkins take the initiative to bring artists together and make a collective impact.
