Interview: Elena Kollatou and Leonidas Toumpanos

conducted by Vicky Markolefa

1. Why photography: What inspired you to become photographers? 
Photography is the means to explore the world, broaden our vision, meet people and understand life.  Photography is the ‘excuse’ to travel, research and learn. Photography for us is the passport to get access to places that we wouldn't be able to access otherwise. And is our way of communicating all the things we encounter. 

2: You have found a way to combine your visions and work together in a common creative process. Please, indulge us in the hows and whys you choose to work together. How do you manage the challenges that might come up in a creative partnership?

We have been working together for the last 6 years. It came out naturally on a trip we did in East Germany for The Energy project, where we documented the villages that were about to be swept out because of the expansion of a local coal mine. We travelled together and documented the area independently. When we came back and started editing the images we realised that the series was becoming far more powerful when we were putting images together from both of us. And that was the start of our collaboration. 

So we did the same in the following projects and trips and it has been working perfectly for us since. Working together allows us to combine our strengths and eliminate our weaknesses.  It is certainly a challenging way of working. You have to confine your ego and argue for your ideas and beliefs. But it is a way to filter out your ideas and put forward only the ones that really worth it. 

Teamwork is far better than trying something out by yourself. Since we have been working together our work became more dynamic and got more depth. It is certainly a better way of working, because you are sharing everything not only your successes but your failures as well. We do believe in teamwork and we are open-depending on the project we are working on-to expand our team and work with others. 

Photography has moved away from a simple representation and documentation.The medium of photography nowadays has to respond to a multi layered and complex reality and we believe that a team of artists can collectively work and respond better to it. 

3. How has photography influenced your approach and life experiences? 

Photography is a great way to travel and through traveling you are meeting people and realizing how close and similar all humans are. People in the vast majority are struggling with the same problems no matter where they are located. When you realize this simple thing, you are more open to others and you understand them better. 

4. You are offering photography classes. What are your insights from this field?

It is interesting, fun and creative to share your knowledge with the new generation of photographers! Teaching makes you understand the medium better, expand your knowledge and try harder to become a better photographer. You want your students to look up at you in a way! So it doesn’t let you become lazy. 

5. More and more people seem to be interested in street and documentary photography. What would be your advice to new photographers now starting on this path? 

We tend not to give advice to anyone, since we don’t consider ourselves experts. We believe that we are in the very beginning of our path. If we could share something from our experience so far would be that photography requires time. Not only to make a project but also to get recognition for it, so you need to have patience. 
Also, if you want to be independent in your artistic practise you have to solve the tricky  equation of how to make a living and pay your bills. 

6. In the current state of affairs, how do you see photography evolving? What is your view for the future of the medium? 

We think that photography is in a very interesting turning point in the history of the medium.There are artistic works very personal, abstract and lyrical. But at the same time there are projects very political driven by research in depth willing to unveil a multi layered reality, aiming to provoke a public talk about very important matters. 

The possibilities of the medium have expanded and photography nowadays has managed to break the limitation of time. An artist can talk not only about present events but also for past and future incidents. The artist is free to move in time and space, trigger public discussion and restore history. 
We are really excited since the future of the medium looks very promising. 

7. Please, tell us more about the project: Persephone's Nightmare. Describe the idea, the creative process and your experience related to its creation. 

Persephone’s Nightmare project deals with human intervention on nature in order to extract oil and gas. We researched hydraulic fracturing- or simply fracking- procedure for getting oil and gas from shale rocks. During fracking, a mixture of water, sand and chemicals is being injected with high pressure in a well in order to release the desired oil and gas on the surface. Fracking is a controversial process that has both strong supporters and opponents. 

We travelled in the fracking areas in the UK and we shot the fracking sites on film with an analog camera. We developed the film and then in a process to imitate the fracking procedure we went back to the fracking sites and buried the film there for few weeks.

Then we washed the film and scanned the images. The end result is completely random and in a way expresses the randomness of the fracking process itself. Since it comes with many risks like contamination on water supplies, pollution on surrounding vegetation, release of air pollutants etc. 
​
This project is a good example of how creative you can become when you are working on a subject. There are no limitations! Photography is experimentation and fun!

8. What are your plans for the future? Dreams, hopes?

At the moment we are slightly restricted with travelling-due to covid19- so we do hope to be able to travel abroad soon. So till then we are researching on a new-energy related- project and experimenting with printing processes that we would like to incorporate into our future projects. 

​
E: kollatou.toumpanos@gmail.com
W: https://www.kollatoutoumpanos.com
T: 0030 6972210650

Elena Kollatou and Leonidas Toumpanos are documentary photographers living and working in Athens Greece. Elena holds a BA (HONS) degree on Photography and Film from Edinburgh Napier University and Leonidas holds a MA degree on Photojournalism and Documentary Photography of University of Arts in London. They are working collaboratively on long-term projects and aiming to engage viewers in a creative discourse about better comprehension of nature, society and human existence. Their work has been published and exhibited in Month of Photography Los Angeles, Athens Photo Festival, Brighton Photo Fringe Festival, Rovinj Photo Days, Manifesto Photo Festival among others. Elena and Leonidas are organizers of Athens Photo Scratch in Athens, a social, networking and feedback event for documentary photographers, photojournalists and people involved in the associated industries of photographic picture making.

Awards
2019 Open Wall Arles, British Journal of Photography, Arles, France 2018 Photohastings Shutter Hub Award, Photo Fringe, Brighton UK 2018 Encontros da Imagem, Self Publish books, Braga, Portugal 2017 Manifesto photo festival, Toulouse, France
2017 Rovinj photo days, Croatia
2016 Brighton Photo Fringe Festival, UK
2016 Athens Photo Festival, Greece
2014 M.I.F.A AWARDS (Moscow International photo awards), Russia 2014 E.S.P.Y Awards, UK
2011 Young Greek photographer, Greece
2011 15th Biennale of young Mediterranean Artists

Exhibitions
2019 Plauteau 034, Zoetrope, Athens, Greece
2019 Athens Photo Festival, Photobook exhibition, Athens, Greece 2019 MOMus-Museum of Photography,Thessaloniki, Greece
2019 Head On Festival, Sydney ,Australia
2017 Beyond Borders, Lower Gallery, U.A.L, London
2016 Lochgelly Arts Centre Fife, Scotland
2015 China Lishui Photography Festival
2015 Creative Debuts Showcase Ten, Black and White space, London 2014 Greek Film and Photo week Festival, Toronto, Canada
2014 'NAUTILUS' Bozar Navigating Greece, Brussels
2013 Solo Exhibition K.E.T Athens, Greece
2013 Lochgelly Arts Centre Fife, Scotland
2012 Photo Space Gallery, Scotland