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October 13, 2008 |
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Created and Maintained by: The Photoimaging Information Council |
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by Sarah Coleman |
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Lana Slezic has babies on her mind. Specifically, her own baby, who’s due to arrive on the scene some time this summer. What happens to an intrepid documentary photographer when she has a baby? “I have visions of strapping the child to my back and going to Calcutta and the deep south of India,” she says. “I don’t know what will happen, though. Probably my whole outlook will change overnight.” Given the intensity and beauty of Slezic’s work to date, one hopes she’ll opt for the baby-on-the-back option. A rising talent in the world of documentary photography, Slezic had one of last year’s most striking debuts with her book “Forsaken: Afghan Women.” The result of two years’ work, the book told the stories of Afghan women from all walks of life, from prostitutes and child brides to a female police detective.  Afghanistan © Lana Slezic
Slezic got the idea for the book, she says, when it became clear to her that Afghan women had not been liberated by the fall of the Taliban. Despite the fact that certain Afghan women have become politicians, police detectives and newscasters, misogyny and domestic abuse are still rife in the country. “To beat a woman is to love a woman,” she was told by an Afghan man in his twenties. Slezic’s portraits of the women in the book show a deep connection between her and her subjects, and manage to be visually stunning too. Many show the effects of casual brutality on Afghan women. We meet Zahra, whose husband drove her to set herself on fire, and Gulsuma, who was married at four and beaten constantly by her in-laws. In the face of this oppression, the women’s resilience and good humor is remarkable.  Afghanistan © Lana Slezic
Reached by phone at her home in Istanbul, Slezic ponders the brutality of Afghan society. “It’s completely cultural, it starts in the household,” she says. “How do you change attitudes that have been ingrained for hundreds of years?” Organizations in Afghanistan are trying to help women, she says, but it’s a slow process. “Afghan women have to help each other,” she says. “That sort of change has to come from within.” Born in Canada of Croatian parents, Slezic is a wanderer by nature. Now living in Istanbul, she is relocating soon to New Delhi. Growing up in Toronto, she maintained a strong connection to Croatia and visited her grandparents in Dubrovnik every summer until war broke out in 1991. “The language, culture and rhythms of Croatia have guided me through many moments of my life,” she writes on her Web site.  Dubrovnik © Lana Slezic
Recently, she’s returned to photograph in Dubrovnik, which she calls “a golden city.” “There’s a real sense of passion, strength and humor there,” she says. “The people there are so protective of their city. It’s almost as if they’re part of the stone and rock that’s been there since the 7th century.” Her photographs of the city show people with a great zest for life, reveling in the simple pleasures of outdoor life. Slezic says that her work is guided by an openness to whatever’s in front of her. “When I’m photographing, I become a vessel – there’s nothing premeditated about it,” she says. A self-described “late bloomer,” she came to photography only after she’d completed an undergraduate degree in Kinesiology, the study of body movement. Traveling in Asia after graduating, she became hooked on photography. “I couldn’t stop taking photographs,” she says. “I decided it was what I wanted to do. It was almost instantaneous.”  Dubrovnik © Lana Slezic
Her first long-term project, undertaken when she was studying photojournalism, was a study of Mennonite communities near her parents’ home outside Toronto. “I’d drive up there on weekends and just knock on doors,” she says. Unaware that Magnum photographer Larry Towell had done a 10-year project on Mennonites, she shot a series of beautifully composed, intimate images of everyday life in this religious community. It set the tone for her future work. In the tradition of her hero Henri Cartier-Bresson, Slezic works simply. Her camera is a Nikon D2X; her favorite lens the 17-55mm. She works only with available light and doesn’t carry reflectors or other gizmos with her. More important than technology is the emotional connection she makes with her subjects, she says. She’s interested in projects that allow her to “spend a lot of time, and invest a lot of heart and soul in one project.”  Mennonites © Lana Slezic
In Afghanistan, Slezic put her heart and soul on the line, and found herself grappling with the question of what a photojournalist’s role is. In the case of Gulsuma, the abused former child bride, she felt so saddened that she tried to intervene with authorities to get Gulsuma to a new home. But generally, she says, she stays more neutral. “I’m there to document a situation – I don’t work for an NGO,” she says. “I have to be honest with people about that. If I’m not, then it’s all false.” In future, Slezic says, she hopes to travel more, taking assignments from her agency, Panos, as well as developing her own projects. Of course, some of that will depend on the baby, who, still in utero, has “traveled to more countries than you can imagine.” Wherever she goes, though, she will approach her work with “a certain openness, a willingness to accept anything” as she learns about other people’s lives. Parenthood is yet another journey, a chance to learn, an adventure into the unknown.  Mennonites © Lana Slezic
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