Mar 17, 20212 min read

Richard Mosse- artist research

Richard Mosse is an Irish photographer that focuses on conflicts in foreign countries, he also has done a project more recently focusing on the mass migration and displacement of people across Europe, the Middle east and North Africa. His work is very much done to inform the western countries what is happening abroad, even though his methods and work have led to a number of questions and criticism. In his two major projects Infra and Incoming Richard used very distinct and unusual materials. For the Infra project, documenting the war between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Congolese national army, he used a discontinued Kodak Aerochrome film, used for military purposes, which is just false colour infrared film that registers light that cannot be seen by humans; all it means is that the greens in the soldier’s camouflage and lush plains of Congo render in pinks and red. For the Incoming project he used a military grade camera that detects and images body heat from very large distances. To summarise Richard uses unusual methods, methods used by the military, not journalists. This repurposing of military equipment (solely the Incoming project) is touchy topic, because the photograph you get are very inhumane, and very off-putting, which is successful I guess, that is Mosse’s purpose, and ethical consideration behind the work. However, with the Incoming project comes another ethical problem, with the fact that the subjects do not approve, the pictures are taken in covert and the final product isn’t just reporting, Mosse sells those photographs. Some people view it as a profit off other people’s struggle, and the usage of military equipment doesn’t help because even though it may be shedding lights on the social problem it’s also normalising the use of invasive technologies. On the other hand, I prefer his Infra project a lot more, it also fits in better with his concept that “beauty is the sharpest tool in the box if you want to make people feel something”, the pictures in Congo are beautiful regardless of what is being shown, that’s not the case with his other project. With the Infra project the people also are aware that they are being photographed, maybe it makes the photographs less honest, but I think it also makes it more emotional. The surreal photos of Congo do well to show that what happened is beyond belief, but then again making conflict visually appealing may not be right. I don’t know I am really devised with his work, from an arts point of view I love his Infra project, but looking at it holistically both projects are questionable, but also successful in communicating tragedies to the world. Compared to other war photographers Richard Mosse stands out as very defying and controversial photographer in an already controversial field. From my research what I’ll apply to my project is to not fear being controversial, being bold and challenge the norm, if I stay in between the lines, the work will be confirmative defeating the whole idea behind the project, being innovative.

Infra- 2012