MARC: What did that feel like?
KARINE: It was like opening a gift. A gift from Steidl to myself.
MARC: It must be quite emotional. 16 years of work.
KARINE: It's really emotional, because when I go through these pages, I'm taken back to all these mo-
ments. It's a little like a diary. A biographical book.
MARC: How important is it for you as an artist to have this sign of recognition?
KARINE: It feels like something has been achieved. There is obviously a big satisfactory effect. You feel
it was not in vain, there was something there that was worth pursuing and sharing. My work has been
published extensively in magazines before, so it's not the first time I feel this feeling of recognition, but
this is more personal. It's almost like a baby, and it took a long time to birth.
MARC: This book is your baby.
KARINE: There is also something special about the physicality of it. Photography is quite abstract,
and it's becoming more and more abstract with digital photography, social media and the way we
disseminate our pictures and share them. We lose contact with the image as the object, it becomes
this abstract relationship. But there is something very physical about the book that almost feels new
again. Because we forgot about it.
MARC: Especially today with social media, where everybody thinks they're a photographer thanks to
filters and all other kinds of easy manipulation.
KARINE: Yes. And everybody does it mostly for one purpose, which is to embellish, to beautify, to look
better. It's boring. There is beauty in imperfection and in accidents too.
MARC: As in life?
KARINE: Yes, life is full of surprises, trials, failures, ups and downs. I like to embrace the unknown, and
it has always served me well in a way. That's the way to move forward.
MARC: You dedicated the book to your grandmother.
KARINE: She always pushed me to make radical decisions in my life. She was always very supportive.
She's 94 and lives in the South of France, so I was actually very nervous with that book. I knew I was
going to dedicate it to her, but I had to wait so long for it to come together that I was nervous she would
die before the book was out.
MARC: Did you send her a copy?
KARINE: Steidl sent her a copy.
MARC: How did she respond?
KARINE: She said that, when she saw her name, she cried.
Marc Pitzke is a U.S. correspondent for the German newsweekly DER SPIEGEL and its web edition, SPIEGEL
ONLINE. He is based out of New York City.
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