Punk off-screen: photographing with punk

Étienne Renzo loves taking portraits of punks. He started long before the festive gatherings such as the "grosse entube", which he hosted on his airfield. Touched by the commitment, critical derision, creativity and humanity of the neo-keupons, he set out to meet them in their unlikely living quarters. With the idea of carrying out "photographic interviews", which was to become a veritable artistic project.

Portraits

Marido: "Me, I was born a woman, with female genitalia. And I'm fine with that. Is it lucky to be a woman? I think it is. But it's hard. It's very, very, very, very hard"

Cha: "Being human is not eco-responsible"

Jojo: "The punk movement, as it may have existed, it's dead. Dead and buried. But there's a continuity in the ideals, which are profoundly humanist, of mutual aid, solidarity, or making do and fiddling. But also to feel rejected, or to see ourselves as rejected, by a system that doesn't suit us"

Everyday punk

Annie Cordiste: "I think I'm going to slowly take up animal communication because my dog brings me so much."

Johnny: "If we're eco-responsible? Well, yeah, because we don't really have a choice. Our lifestyle means that we don't consume much, we make do with what we've got. We do a lot of salvaging and recycling. We don't buy billions of things at the consumer fair

Jan: "In rural areas, there's really very little diversity. So there's a kind of thing like that going on. People also don't realize the extent to which we convey ordinary racism, which makes it very unpleasant for people who are concerned and racialized"

Art and celebration

Marido: "My punk culture started with my techno culture, and mixing when I was 17 or organizing underground events. Of course there was spirituality, because in fact, the musical journey you offer people over several days, even though it's illegal, and you put yourself in danger for it, is obviously spiritual. For me, at the time, the world of techno culture was a form of punk"

Niko: "What I like about n'importe quoi, like at a big festival or a big free party, that everyone's drugged up and throwing themselves on the floor. When it's all so crazy, well, there's always something beautiful behind it. Either love or friendship. When you're really high on drugs or really drunk, and you hug each other, you purify yourself and solve problems together."

Cha: "With or without glitter? With, clearly, because there's still plenty of oil on the planet, so we really need to exploit all the oil that's left to make plastic micro-particles and spread them on our faces. That's very important, it's true. We're fighting for it. We need diesel and glitter!"

Photographic interviews

Etienne Renzo is very familiar with the spirit and history of the punk movement, which he saw emerge in the 1970s, sharing some of its revolts and values in the face of outrageous capitalism. As a self-taught photographer, he flirted with community life and grew up with punk, keeping a close eye on its alternative developments. Particularly in rural areas, where he himself has chosen to live a certain relationship with the world.
That's why the Punk Project is more the extension of a commitment than the product of a report. Even if the images and words collected reveal the new facets of a movement that is still very much alive, and more topical than ever. From both ontological and anthropological points of view, when it's affects, existences, ways of being and surviving that are at stake above all else.
So much so that punk culture, which celebrates its fiftieth anniversary this decade, takes on a particular meaning and significance here. First of all, its relevance as a historical fact, foreshadowing today's environmental and societal awareness. It is like a prophetic and visionary warning against the excesses of the neo-liberalism that emerged from Thatcherism at the end of the 1970s, and which is now a global phenomenon. So much so that this deregulated civilisation now embodies the 'No Future' that denounced it, in a lasting threat to the very habitability of this world.
Seeing punk again and again with Étienne Renzo is something of an exorcism, an antidote and a cure. For 'Punk hors-champ' also tackles the subtle dimensions of the punk soul and spirit, with its cultural and psychosocial realities. If only to thwart the deleterious collusion between consumerist individualism and digital narcissism, which is becoming the norm to the detriment of collective and environmentalist empathy. Punk hors-champ also takes the liberty of exploring the esoteric and spiritual dimensions that are invisible and rarely mentioned, yet which are important to many of its protagonists. This is where the plunge into punk cosmology takes on the aspect of a quest rather than an investigation. An initiatory quest into the heart of a damaged humanity. But all the better to find ourselves.

Exhibition and publication

Values still relevant today
From its beginnings in 1976-1980, punk feigned stupidity and claimed a certain "cultural illiteracy" that contrasted with the power of action it concealed. Identified in the collective imagination with the aesthetics of an iconoclastic musical genre, punk was also a protest movement, embodying political and social values ranging from anti-authoritarianism to "do-It-Yourself". As punk has evolved, so have the social divisions it has constantly denounced. That's why it's still relevant today, and a critical force to be reckoned with in an age of widespread individualism and neglect of collective causes.

City punk, country punk
Although the punk movement is largely urban in origin, it is far from having disappeared from the landscape. Particularly in rural areas, where punk culture seems to have taken hold. Not far from the ZAD phenomenon and other forms of alternative action. Even in retreat, punks are still in the vanguard, with a dual face that Etienne Renzo captures so well. On the one hand, there's a jovial, benevolent dimension, even a sense of fun and celebration! The party as a ritual instance of subversion of signs and collective fraternity. And on the other, a commitment linked to radical lifestyle choices. Visionary choices in terms of degrowth, anti-consumerism and solidarity. Not forgetting the nomadic dimension of punk, which can nonetheless become sedentary in the city as well as in the country, setting up its lorry in a wasteland, a squat, a wood or a farm backyard.

Invisibilisation and subversion
Étienne Renzo's approach here is to show the humanity and topicality of these individual and collective experiences. It is also a way of conveying their message by bearing witness to a cultural and social reality whose invisibility is, for most of them, desired and assumed. Their disappearance from society's radar appears to be a radical and subversive option, given the existential modes and codes of identification of our time. This deliberate obliteration, which limits the possibility of photographing communities and the places where they live to a handful of familiar people, makes these images all the more precious and significant.

Photographic interviews
Étienne Renzo's approach is first and foremost to give a presence and a voice back to the original players in punk culture. His project extends the exchanges he has always had with them, through the images and text of what he calls "photographic interviews". The modus operandi consists first and foremost of taking photographic portraits in situ, posed photos or photos taken on the spot in the conditions in which they live or work. At the same time, the comments are collected in the form of a flash interview, based on a few questions drawn at random from a deck of cards specially designed for the project. Just like a good fortune. The images and words are taken during the exchange and then transcribed. By mutual agreement with the protagonists, these images and texts are treated in such a way as to be exhibited and published. They may or may not be associated, depending on the publication and exhibition arrangements.

A tour of France's punk scene for a travelling exhibition
Étienne Renzo's involvement in the punk scene has given him access to a large number of individuals and communities formed in networks outside the city. This could be extended to the urban context through various squats or communities that he also plans to visit in the Drôme, the Massif Central, Brittany or the south-west. Étienne Renzo began his quest nearly three years ago, and will continue it by visiting the four main regions of France, as well as Europe, where he also has contacts.

The exhibition
The aim is to present series of colour or black and white photographs. The plan is to hold the first exhibitions in 2025, with a view to securing partnerships to publish a book. The post-production work on the photos and texts will be carried out as the interviews progress. New interviews may also be carried out within the regional perimeter of the exhibition venues. The presentations will combine different types of print, framing and hanging depending on the exhibition space. The scenography of the exhibitions will be adapted to the configuration of the venues.

The publication
The publication will take up the main themes of the series, with portraits, scenes of life and context, as well as the artistic and festive creativity that are often indissociable. In particular, the "grosse entube" event, one of the origins of this project. The publication will give pride of place to the punk habitus and its different levels of material and immaterial reality. The comments will be rendered with a minimum of standardisation. Even if they are critical and rebellious, or even approximate in terms of the rules of syntax and spelling. The book may be supplemented by outside contributions that reflect the full breadth and diversity of the issues at stake in the punk phenomenon.

For a punk photo!
The publication of a collective work, "Penser avec le Punk "* (Thinking with Punk), coordinated by music critic and philosopher Catherine Guesde, convinced Étienne Renzo that he needed to develop and showcase his project. Like this publication, his aim is not "to convert this subversive subculture into a philosophical system", but rather to show "the fertile links between punk and animal ethics, deep ecology, feminism and, more unexpectedly, spirituality". More precisely, Étienne Renzo's photographic interviews aim to extend the scope of punk to the field of photography itself. With a view, why not, to a convergence of their respective commitments within a punk photography that has yet to be invented.

*Thinking with punk - Catherine Guesde - PUF 2022

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