German filmmaker Wim Wenders (b. 1945) argues that each photograph is a sort of time capsule with an incredible relation to its own past and future. Congolese artist and photographer Sammy Baloji (b. 1978) is interested in how images can be used to create a sort of fiction from reality. This notion is echoed by American photographer Catherine Opie (b. 1961), who loves photography’s ability to create a history, as well as Canadian photographer Jeff Wall (b. 1946), who believes that a beautiful illusion “so similar to what we see with our eyes, it seems as though we’re looking through the surface.”

Indian photographer Dayanita Singh (b. 1961) looks to literature when she makes her photographs and similarly, American artist Roni Horn (b. 1955) draws from other art forms such as architecture and sculpture when working with photography. Finnish photographer Elina Brotherus (b. 1972) stresses the importance of vision, while Danish photographer Per Bak Jensen (b. 1949) comments that the pictures you create “are characterized by your view of the world”, a belief which is supported by German artist Thomas Demand (b. 1964), who argues that many things only really become visible via the images we see of them. Finally, Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado (b. 1944) comments on the powerful language of photography, just as Danish photographer and artist Nicolai Howalt (b. 1970) once felt that the camera provided him with a key to the entire world.

All interviews by Marc-Christoph Wagner, Christian Lund, Roxanne Bagheshirin Lærkesen, Mathias Ussing Seeberg and Michael Juul Holm, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, except Roni Horn, who was interviewed by Dayanita Singh.

Produced and edited by: Roxanne Bagheshirin Lærkesen
Cover photo: ‘Summer Afternoons’, 2013 by Jeff Wall
Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2017

Supported by Nordea-fonden