If eyes are the windows to our soul, what are teeth, then? The answer is unclear, but photographer Nika Sandler explores this and, more importantly, the emotions they evoke in her new series, A History of Teeth. “It was during the extraction of my painful wisdom tooth that my thoughts turned to teeth,” she explains in this exclusive interview. “I saw the wisdom tooth that had been pulled out of my mouth as a trophy for my endurance and as a record of my experience, for with it I had travelled from its emergence to decay and death. Teeth have haunted my thoughts ever since.”
It’s common knowledge that a good smile can get you far. And for ages, advertising has convinced us that we need a shining white, perfectly aligned set of teeth. But historically, it hasn’t always been the case. For example, in Japan, for centuries geishas painted their teeth black — a beauty practice called ohaguro. And to many, crooked teeth can be sexy too. But they’re not only important for the grin; they’re culturally tied to experiences of pain and pleasure, a dichotomy that makes them a remarkably exciting feature in people’s faces. To discuss all of this, we speak with Nika and get to know her fascination with teeth, her posthumanist approach to photography, and what role does hedonism play in all of this.
Hi Nika, welcome back to METAL! We las spoke to you in 2021 as you published the series The World of Hedonia. What have you been up to since then?
Hi, hi, hi! Thanks, I'm very happy to be back in METAL, I missed you a lot! I always remember the last interview with great warmth. Since then I've been involved in visual tooth research and exploring the possibilities of artificial intelligence to realise my other recent work, The Ancient Depths, about prehistoric marine animals.
You’re back with a new body of work, A History of Teeth. What prompted you to start it, and how has it evolved from the first idea to the final result?
It was during the extraction of my painful wisdom tooth that my thoughts turned to teeth. There I was, trapped in the dentist's chair, caught between two states. On one side, the sharp edge of fear and discomfort; on the other, a strange pleasure tinged with an almost forbidden allure. This moment dredged up a childhood memory — a peculiar habit I had in the boredom of kindergarten. With nothing else to occupy my restless mind, I would press my fingernails into my gums, eliciting a sweet, aching sensation that seemed on the verge of release.
I saw the wisdom tooth that had been pulled out of my mouth as a trophy for my endurance and as a record of my experience, for with it I had travelled from its emergence to decay and death. Teeth have haunted my thoughts ever since. I decided to give shape to this fascination through photography. I wanted to capture the spectrum of emotions teeth evoke.
For inspiration, I turned to the powerful dental photographs of Torbjørn Rødland, with their surreal interplay of attraction and anxiety. I was also drawn to Edgar Allan Poe's Berenice, in which the protagonist is maniacally obsessed with his cousin's teeth.
As you explain, you explore teeth “as a record of human experience.” But any body part can show our personal experience and the passage of time. So, why teeth?
Absolutely! I'm just an odontophile :) I'm also intrigued by the ability of teeth to retain information about their former owners over a vast number of years.
Your World of Hedonia series was very influenced by philosophy (hedonism specifically) and anti-capitalist values. What would you say are the conceptual, philosophical, and/or political pillars of A History of Teeth?
In this series, I continue to reflect on hedonism, but with the addition of posthumanist ideas.
When looking for teeth/people to photograph, what were you looking for?
I was looking for the fulfillment of various hidden feelings and desires.
Photographing a bloody tooth doesn’t strike as pleasant. Was there something you didn’t have the guts to portray?
Perhaps not. Rather, there were things I lacked the knowledge or imagination to depict. For example, I wanted to visualise the sounds made by teeth. But I found my attempts unconvincing.
Teeth, being so visible and placed inside our mouth, which is a massive way to express ourselves, have always been a highly relevant feature in people’s faces. What were some ideas you had related to teeth, and how have they evolved throughout the making of the project?
I've been thinking a lot about the ambivalence of teeth: their ability to be both seductive and repulsive, to open the way to pleasure and pain. I have also thought about them as a repository of information and a refuge for other living beings. I've tried to reflect all these things in my work.
Besides teeth themselves, you also photograph teeth-related objects like chewing gum or a toothbrush. What about them is important to contribute to the story’s message?
It was important to me to capture not only the teeth, but also the objects that regularly come into contact with them, because these objects illustrate the experience of caring for something (in this case, the teeth) or someone (oneself and the inhabitants of the oral cavity) on a daily routine.
It’s also surprising to see you studied plaque bacteria and machine vision. Could you expand more on that?
I'm a posthumanist and a big enthusiast of non-human photography, so it was natural for me to get to the other side of human vision. I wanted to know how a machine sees human teeth, so I turned to dental cone beam computed tomography. I wanted to see who lives on teeth, so I took samples and grew them in a petri dish.
