Yolanda del Amo received her Master’s degree in Mathematics from
the Universität zu Köln in Cologne, Germany and her MFA in
photography from the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence. Her
work has been exhibited in numerous galleries, including at the SoHo
20 Gallery in New York; Momus Gallery in Atlanta, GA; Gallery International
in Baltimore, MD; as well as in Spain and Argentina. Awards include an
Honorable Mention in a competition of the Universidad Complutense in
Madrid, Spain; an Award of Excellence in the All Media Competition at
the Gallery International in Baltimore, MD; and The Best of Show Award
at the “Crushed Crushes” Show in the ARC gallery in Chicago,
IL. Currently she is teaching at the Rhode Island School of Design
in Providence and the International Center of Photography, NY.
Del Amo’s work deals with psychological issues such as relationships
between people and between people and their environments. She raises
questions about the labels that categorize personal relationships and
private territories. By choreographing situations, working with found
images, or incorporating text, her work transcends straight photography
and crosses the boundaries between photography and storytelling.
INTERVIEW
Interview date: April 2005
Interviewed by Ka-Man Tse
Yolanda: So here are some images that I have been
taking during the last month of the residency. I’ve been focusing
on the spaces here in the area [lower Manhattan]. This photograph
is taken off the roof of this building at 120 Broadway. There’s
also this other photograph, which is taken here on the 7th floor of this
building. I’ve been trying different things. I have
been also shooting all kinds of film, negatives and transparencies. My
first shots were actually staged shots. I experimented a little
with that. This is the reception area of LMCC here in the same
building, using models and staging the situations. But that actually
didn’t quite work for me so I started photographing more spaces. I’ve
been photographing the conference room of LMCC and also the kitchen
and all kinds of spaces.
I’ve been thinking, what do I really want to say? I’ve
seen these images before. I’ve seen images of office spaces
before, these cold office spaces, they are a really cliché criticism
against the corporate world. And I want to say a little more about
that, because I actually come from a corporate background. I studied
mathematics and I worked several years as a manager so I know a little
more about that than just a cliché criticism. I
want to incorporate some text to my images which has to be a text that
adds a voice to the images, and things that I heard myself when I was
working, and things that you read. …
Once I had that idea I started working on different photo shoots… For
example this one where I ordered a cake the same color of the chairs
of this conference room, so I had a meeting with the baker. And
then we bought all the props matching the exact same color. I spent
a whole day walking through New York matching the colors. The text
that is going to go with this image was very clear to me before shooting
the image. So in my process, [at first] I started just shooting
images. And then at one point when I had this idea of combining
them with text, new images started coming to mind. So for this
image, the text is going to be… I have to work on it more and
translate it to English, but it will be something along the lines of “Thank
you for your selfless ten-year contribution to this corporation.” Referencing
these parties that you have in the corporations when somebody has this
anniversary. The cake says, “Happy Anniversary,” and
there is a present that is supposed to be a wallet, because where I worked,
people always got a wallet. They are always this kind of sad party,
and nobody actually really wants to go there. That was actually
my intention, I don’t know if it was successful.
LMCC: No, it comes across.
Yolanda: So this is the 15 year anniversary
party. Now
this week I want to photograph the Five Year anniversary party, where the cake
is not going to be as fancy and nice as this one. So I’m going
to buy a cheaper cake with not so nice colors, and not everything is going
to match. I’m going to shoot it in another conference room somewhere
else. So having these two images—maybe this is part of
larger series of anniversaries, where the longer you are with the corporation,
the better the cake. …
So playing with those ideas, and not making this project a strictly
documentary project about office spaces, because again, I’ve seen that before. And
actually when I started photography after working in a corporation, my
very first project was photographing office spaces because that was exactly
what I had access to and what was available. I photographed my
own office, my clients' offices, it was fun. I was living in Argentina
at the time, knowing that I was leaving it. I told them I want to photograph
these spaces because I wanted to have them as a record of my experience
there, and they let me photograph them. And actually that
specific project brought me into grad school here in the States and actually
got me started in photography. I did that in black and white and
with a 35mm camera because I really didn’t know a lot about photography
at that time, and I didn’t have a lot of sophisticated equipment. So
I’ve always been thinking about doing that again, now I shoot 4x5
(large format) so it takes me much longer to photograph just one single
image. But I am not interested in documentary photography. I
want to do a little bit more than that. So this thing with the
cake is a little bit of a mix of reality and artifice. … And also
including situations with people. There is this shot here with
the guy that is on the roof [of 120 Broadway]. I wasn’t so
sure about this shot, but when I did this photo, I was thinking about
a phrase like, “When I started working in this corporation, I was
planning to stay only one year and now I am already 15 years here.” I
am not critiquing this, it is how life goes. You start having responsibilities
and then maybe you start losing your dreams of being free and trying
different things. And that’s what I’m interested
in, talking about those things.
LMCC:Can you talk more about how you are going to present
your work, you’re going to have text with the final images?
Yolanda: I don’t know exactly how [to incorporate]
the text. I don’t know if for Open Studios I will have the final
presentation for this work, because I really feel that this is a project that
has actually just started, and is very important and very meaningful for me.
So ideally, I was thinking, maybe in the future, to have these phrases framed
in a way where the frame goes with the images that I am showing. I don’t
see those as huge prints. I can see them as 25x30, or 22x28. Not
40x50, not so huge. I want to preserve a little of the intimacy.
LMCC: Do you see them as more personal?
Yolanda: More personal? … Maybe.
LMCC: Because you’re talking about them as stories. You’re
more telling a story, then making a comment.
Yolanda: You’re right. That’s a very good
point. Some people have told me lately that my work tells stories. I
think that’s what it is. It’s a little bit of a mix between
just showing photographs, and telling a story… Not a specific story
of an individual, but I want to tell a story. I want to talk about people
who work in those spaces. And I want to have the empathy of these phrases,
and the sadness of the frustrations. The phrase for example, of thinking
you were going to stay only a year, and then being there forever. That’s
what happened to me when I started working at my job... It was a very
traditional insurance company. Everybody was saying, I started this
job thinking that I was going to be staying one year or two years,
and now I am 25 years here. It
was in Germany so usually people stay for a very long time at their jobs, but
I was terrified. I was terrified. Everybody was telling me there stories, how
people buy a house and have children. And then I changed from my previous profession
to doing photography, and then I realize how the environment reacts to that,
and how you can see in people’s eyes that they wish they could have done
the same thing. They have responsibilities, and just can’t. I
feel very lucky to have been able to do this....
