William Keo: Beautiful Paradox / Living with violence In conversation with Luke Newbould
9th March, 2023
William Keo was raised in Paris’ northern banlieues to
parents who fled the genocide perpetrated by the Khmer
Rouge and Pol Pot during the Cambodian Civil War. Beginning his documentary career at the age of 18,
William Keo was sent by French NGOs capture the
exodus of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. Since having
joined Magnum Photos as a nominee in 2021,
his expansive journal has focused upon social issues,
including social exclusion, migration and inter-community
intolerance largely based in the Middle East. Closer to home, William’s personal projects challenge the misconstructed notions and
social discrimination towards Paris’ banlieues, sharing
the stories of those who have migrated to the country
seeking to make it their home and uncovered the
complexities and hardships of doing so.
William Keo: Photography for me is an answer to an
obsessive question and sometimes I find these
answers in other ways than photography. I had an
identity crisis when I was younger, as an
uprooted person, born in a country that was not
my own, with a mother tongue that I only used
at home and another to communicate outside. I
found these answers in other ways.
For my family and I, these answers have
been found but I wonder how others who know a
similar path are doing? This is my question and
the answers are my obsessive projects. Violence
is as universal and strong as love, I feel like I am
documenting humanity in a sense.
The banlieue that I know
is full of paradoxes, nice
people, others less, all are
prisoners of a system that
does not want to question
itself.
While ‘Living with Violence’ serves as social commentary on French banlieue, the photographs present
Parisians in such a loving form. Can you talk about the significance of this?
The French banlieue has a very bad
reputation, both in France and
internationally. It has become a
myth, known as a no-go area. It is
not what I have known, there is an
unprecedented social violence —
for which the government is partly
responsible. In the ‘observatory of inequalities’ nickname given by
the researchers of this territory,
everything is exacerbated. People
are shouting for the reform of the
pensions mounted at 64 years because the life expectancy of
people does not even reach this age
for some. The crisis of COVID-19
has been horrible, the public
services are in a state of disaster.
When the people of the banlieues
cried out about police violence in
the quartiers, the rest of France
laughed in their faces to say that it
didn’t exist, pointing the
responsibility to the populations and
not the police.As a result, the crisis of the
Yellow Vests in 2018 and
the law and order has
highlighted flaws. The banlieue that I know
is full of paradoxes, nice
people, others less, all are
prisoners of a system that
does not want to question
itself.
I don't know if dealing with social rejection builds a
more amiable community. Maybe the images change the misconceptions? Maybe
we’re not saving lives but destroying them?
I have always hated photographing human
suffering even though I see it a lot. I only
photograph it when it is necessary, when I
have something to say with it. For me,
photography and especially conflict
photography, must get out of this tradition
of sensationalism or not only. In Syria, situations can be absurd,
bombastic, people cry in front of you and
don’t care to be photographed — they want
to let you know that they are suffering and
that it is serious for them. However, should
we photograph only that? It makes a strong
portfolio, but with little depth. I try to collaborate as much as possible with
the people I photograph, asking their
permission, especially when they are at
home.
I don't know if dealing with social rejection builds a
more amiable community, people will always deny this
kind of bias by saying that I lack objectivity, which can
sometimes be true, so I don't realise it in this case. I
judge these situations based on the most objective
documentation I can get in my position. Maybe the images change the misconceptions? Maybe
we’re not saving lives but destroying them?
It is important to have the right approach to the subjects
to paint the most honest picture of the situations. But
highlighting these exclusions allows them to exist, the
problem with xenophobic people is that they don’t know
that they are xenophobic. They have their reasons, justified or not, it’s not for me to judge, I only notice with
the photography the disproportionate power ratio. Some rejections are so anchored in the DNA that they
become confrontations of identity, to speak about it, it is
to make a step towards peace.