R U B É N   G A L L O

I am very interested in the relationship between your work and your experience. In discussions on art and literature there has been a very long period - beginning with the structuralist discourse of the 1960s - in which any notion of experience was automatically disqualified: there were constant assurances made that texts and works of art had absolutely nothing to do with the life of the author, that they were independent structures governed exclusively by internal rules and considerations.

In recent years, various important critics - most notably Julia Kristeva - have abandoned this structuralist position in order to investigate the relation between the work of art and the author's experience.

I would like to ask you various questions about your experiences in Rwanda to arrive at a more complete understanding of Real Pictures. Tell me a bit about your itinerary during the twelve days you were in the region. Did you arrive there with a program of what you wanted to see and photograph, or did this happen in a more spontaneous manner? How did you live? How did you travel?