Conversations / William Keo
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.