Nathan Ishar

Nathan Pramudiya Ishar works collectively and individually with photography, film, performance and curation. The personal works of Nathan investigate philosophical themes, theory of images and sets them in contexts of religious, spiritual, artistic practices.

"Hello, I'm Nathan, I work photographically, individually on personal projects, often show the work in slide projections, but also work collectively, for example in the work "Moving Images" with Josefine Luka Simonsen, a person who dances together.
I am interested in the questions of what photography can perhaps do performatively, questions of photographic theory and history and how I can use photography in the context of topics such as religion and philosophical issues to engage with society or the part of society I am interested in photographically.

For me, photography is still very exciting, even though I've been involved with photography for a very, very long time, because I've realized that images, and mostly even photographs, simply determine our lives. In ever, ever, ever more facets. In my work, I try to deal with these questions about what photography actually is. And I think that through the slide projection I pick up on things that we get on social media these days, but in itself it's a very classic kind of photography.
The question is also interesting for me in photography: Is this an object? Is that something else? How can photographs interact with each other or interact with us? And what happens if the photographs are not seen as material that we look at or perhaps even - something that is often forgotten in the contemplation - that it perhaps has an origin in materiality.

The performance that I'm currently doing with Josefine Luka Simonsen is about questioning the role of the body in photography a little and, at the same time, how the body, the physical body of performers, can interact with photographs. And yes, and in this work, which is called "Moving Images", which we showed at Museumsnacht, among other things, it's also about perhaps using photography or bodies in photography with archives or other material, but also looking at how photographs can function as actors in a performance."

"I don't have a formal, professional background in performance. But what interests me very much about performance art is that, unlike photography, for example, it naturally has to happen over time in order to be received. And at least the classic idea of photography is, of course, that in the context of dance or performance it serves to document what is happening. And of course that's not entirely true. There are works that are of course only made for photography or video etc. I find it interesting when the photos don't just hang on the wall, which I also think is really great, but when something else can happen with the photography."

"I'm currently planning to expand the archive. I'm flying to Indonesia in a month's time. And many of my first works actually started in Indonesia. The simple reason is that I use the classic idea of photography as a memory to capture things that I have biographical references to: Places or my family or family, a part of me and then take photos of the visits there. And there's always been the idea of creating a large archive. And I'm going to fly there with Josefine Luka Simonsen, because it's becoming increasingly important to me to question who takes the photos and how you can break that up.

There is this authorship in photography, that's true, but there are also interesting concepts that critically question this, for example Malegaze, but also postcolonial theories on photography. I don't have any answers at the moment and it plays a subordinate role in my personal work. But the question of hierarchy in photography does arise, of course.

And if you take photos, you should be aware of that. I'm currently trying to figure out how to deal with that. One way would be, for example, to make photo series that aren't just of one person, or to name the people who are depicted as the creators of the work. Let's see if I can manage that somehow. But right, so I'm traveling to Indonesia in a month and taking photos, maybe I'll be photographed too."

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Nathan Pramudiya Ishar

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