The Messy Truth - Conversations on Photography Gem Fletcher

Iranian-American photographer Sinna Nasseri describes his ability to catapult viewers into every scene he captures as a "gonzo journalism curiosity." He brings the audience along with him, always thinking about what they want to see. As a self-taught photographer, the path was in no way easy, and he continues to craft a life that enables him to work but with the necessary sacrifices. In a surprising turn of events, 2020 became the year that put Sinna on the map. On the show, we talk about the highs and lows of building a career in the photo industry, what makes a good photo, the pressure and discomfort that comes with figuring out your style and a rhythm of working, while also understanding the conditions in which you do your best work.
The photographer has spent the last three years working on assignments for The New York Times, Vogue, GQ, Departures, The Sunday Times and Interview Magazine and collaborating with clients like Thom Browne. He lives and works in LA.
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Since the 1990s, Vinca Petersen's work has remained an authentic voice of European counterculture, providing diaristic windows onto alternative spaces and lifestyles. A multidisciplinary artist who works in the area of social practice, Petersen's works emerge from a deep social and political engagement with underrepresented communities, giving them a voice and recognition. Her photographic oeuvre captures a period spanning 1990-2004, documenting the artist’s experiences as part of the free party and traveller community. The images juxtapose the sense of escapism and euphoria of this unique cultural moment with the oppressive political climate which outlawed the lifestyles of those responsible for Britain’s rave scene. As well as archiving thousands of photographic images, Petersen has attempted to document a way of life: its flyers, posters and clothes; her work constitutes an archive that records the techno-fuelled raves and lives of the travellers who organised them, but also a creative response to breaking barriers between individuals.
 
Vinca Petersen’s (b.1973) recent solo exhibitions include Make Social Honey - A Collective Search for Joy, Northern Gallery of Contemporary Art, Sunderland, UK (2022); Raves and Riots, Edel Assanti, London, UK. Selected group exhibitions include Techno Worlds, Goethe-Institut, Los Angeles, USA (2022); Sweet Harmony: Out of the Underground, HetHEM, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (2022); It’s a Rave Dave, Giant Gallery, Bournemouth, UK (2021); Night Fever: Designing Club Culture, V&A Dundee, Dundee, UK (2021); Rave, Saatchi Gallery, London, UK (2019); Seaside Photographed, Turner Contemporary, Margate, UK (2019); Diaristic Books, Turner Contemporary, London, UK (2019). Her work is in several public collections including The Arts Council Collection, London, UK; National Portrait Gallery, London, UK; The Monsoon Collection, London, UK; Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK. Vinca Petersen (b. 1973) lives on the Isle of Skye. 
You can support Vinca's work here: https://www.patreon.com/VincaPetersen
Follow Vinca @vincapetersen & Gem @gemfletcher on Instagram. If you've enjoyed this episode, PLEASE leave us your feedback in the Apple Podcast store. Thank you for listening to The Messy Truth. We will be back very soon. For all requests, please email hello@gemfletcher.com

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Balarama Heller's practice reimagines archetypal symbols found in the natural world. He explores primal symbols and patterns, both real and imagined, working towards a visual language of preverbal awareness. These symbols interact in a ceaseless cycle of creation and destruction, referencing the cosmological, mythological, and atomic scales. During our conversation, we talk about how his personal history informs his work, his research practice and how he is shifting away from direct observation to the most reduced and refined versions of his work. 
Balarama lives and works in New York City. Recent exhibitions include Sacred Place with Aperture Foundation / Artsy. Recent group shows include Maelstrom, at 303 Gallery,  New York, You Can't Win, Jack Black's America curated by Randy Kennedy at Fortnight Institute, What's Outside the Window at ReadingRoom, Melbourne AU, Agnes B New York, New Artists at Red Hook Labs and the 2015 Aperture Summer Open. In 2014, he published his first artist book, Into and Through. Zero at the Bone received 1st place for the 2017 Center Awards Editor’s Choice and runner-up for the 2017 Aperture Portfolio Prize. His 2019 project Sacred Place was featured in Aperture Magazine issue 241, with text by Pico Iyer. 
Follow Balarama @balaramaheller & Gem @gemfletcher on Instagram. If you've enjoyed this episode, PLEASE leave us your feedback in the Apple Podcast store. Thank you for listening to The Messy Truth. We will be back very soon. For all requests, please email hello@gemfletcher.com

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Sheida Soleimani’s work explores intersections of art and activism. She melds sculpture, performance, film and photography to highlight critical perspectives on events across the Middle East, unpicking the complex power dynamics between the region and Western nations. 
Her work interrogates the dissemination of information in digital contexts, adapting found images from press and social media leaks to exist within alternative scenarios. In doing this, she’s rigorously 
interrogating the role of images in our lives and psychology, as well as the way they manifest as propaganda in geopolitics. During our conversation, we talk about process, practice, craft, care critique and the importance of spontaneity. 
Sheida Soleimani (b. 1990) received her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2015. Recent solo exhibitions include Ghostwriter, Edel Assanti, London, UK (2023); Negotiators, Kunsthaus Photoforum Pasquart, Biel, CH  (2022); Ghostwriter, Providence College Galleries, Providence, USA (2022); ILVA, Castello San Basilio, Basilicata, Italy (2022); Levers of Power, Silver Eye Centre for Photography, Pittsburgh, USA (2021); Hotbed, Denny Dimin Gallery, New York, USA (2020); Medium of Exchange, Southern Utah Museum of Art, Utah; CUE Art Foundation, New York; Cincinnati Contemporary Art, Cincinnati and Atlanta Contemporary, Atlanta, all USA (2018-2019). Selected group exhibitions include Rising Sun: Artists in an Uncertain AmericaA Trillion Sunsets, ICP, New York, USA (2022); Immune Project, Living Art Museum, Reykjavik, Iceland (2022); Denunciation!, ACC Gallery, Weimar, Germany (2021); deCordova Biennial, deCordova Museum of Art, Lincoln, USA (2019); Ecologies of Darkness, SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin, Germany (2019). Soleimani lives and works in Providence, Rhode Island.
Follow Sheida @sheidajanam & Gem @gemfletcher on Instagram. If you've enjoyed this episode, PLEASE leave us your feedback in the Apple Podcast store. Thank you for listening to The Messy Truth. We will be back very soon. For all requests, please email hello@gemfletcher.com

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Alexandra Rose Howland's practice is invested in illustrating the difficult complexities of our existence. Through her work, she seeks to generate a more expansive understanding of how issues around conflict and the climate crisis are portrayed. She does this by resisting the historical notion of photography as a mode of direct representation created by a single author. Instead, she embraces image-making as a social practice, co-creating stories with her participants. 
Alexandra has lived in the Middle East over the last decade, creating work that aims to challenge and expand the ways that geopolitical events are communicated. Her background as an abstract painter informs her practice, resulting in multidimensional projects that use images, found objects, interviews and video. She has shown internationally with both solo and group exhibitions including Leave and Let Us Go (solo), FOAM Museum Amsterdam, Road to Mosul (solo), London, Textured to Only Us (solo), Los Angeles.  Leave and Let Us Go was published by GOST Books in 2021.
Follow Alexandra @alexandrahowland & Gem @gemfletcher on Instagram. If you've enjoyed this episode, PLEASE leave us your feedback in the Apple Podcast store. Thank you for listening to The Messy Truth. We will be back very soon. For all requests, please email hello@gemfletcher.com


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Myriam Boulos’s practice is rooted in community and resistance, exploring the complex ways our bodies metabolise trauma, assert resistance, seek pleasure and express layers of identity. During our conversation, we talk about Myriam’s projects through the lens of intimacy, survival, political agency, resistance and revolution and perhaps most importantly, consent. 
Myriam Boulos was born in 1992 in Lebanon. At the age of 16 she started to use her camera to question Beirut, its people, and her place among them. She graduated with a master degree in photography from L’Académie Libanaise des Beaux Arts in 2015. Myriam took part in both national and international collective exhibitions, including “Infinite Identities” (Amsterdam), 3ème biennale des photographes du monde arabe (Paris), and “C’est Beyrouth” (Paris). Today she uses photography to explore, defy and resist society. In 2021 she was awarded the Grand prix ISEM and she joined Magnum. She is the Photo Director of Al Hayya Magazine and is currently working on her first book, What’s Ours, in collaboration with Aperture.
Follow Myriam @myriamboulos & Gem @gemfletcher on Instagram. If you've enjoyed this episode, PLEASE leave us your feedback in the Apple Podcast store. Thank you for listening to The Messy Truth. We will be back very soon. For all requests, please email hello@gemfletcher.com


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