#offchain #onchain
About this series
In June of 2017, photographer Erica Simone traveled to Winneba, Ghana with the non-profit organization, Beauty for Freedom (BFF), a New York City-based anti-human trafficking organization, bringing creative workshops and art therapy to victims and survivors of human trafficking and/or slavery. As the photographer Erica Simone states about this series: “In some parts of the world, $20 can barely get you a steak dinner, and in others, it can purchase a live, human child—a child who will most likely be sold into slavery. Welcome to Ghana, and welcome to Lake Volta—the largest man-made reservoir in the world where almost 50,000 children—some as young as four years old—are working under unthinkable duress in the fishing industry.”
Interview
How did you choose your means of expression? How did you start as photographer?
Photography sort of just happened to me. I was always artistic and creative as a kid, and I liked taking pictures with Polaroid cameras and disposable ones, but I would mostly just take pictures of my friends. Then I was gifted a Canon 20D DSLR for my 17th birthday while I was just fresh at college and began to shoot more creatively. Having grown up in Paris, we were always traveling around Europe in the Summer, so I often had fresh subject matter to shoot. My parents had been collecting modern art and photography since before I existed, so I grew up surrounded by great art. When my mom began to look at the photographs I was taking on our trips, she recognized that I had an eye for it and encouraged me to continue. I got my first paid gig when I was around 19 shooting stock photography of Paris street life for a French language textbook. From that moment on, I knew that’s what I wanted to do when I grew up.
You offer a broad range in your photography, from off-chain to on-chain. Your series Ghana came to my eyes because for me it has that curiosity for life. Can you tell more about it?
I’ve always loved shooting a wide variety of subject matter. I think my passion for photography naturally follows my passion for life — I’m very curious and love to travel, to create, to meet people, and to learn and try everything I can. I had been an ambassador to the anti-human-trafficking organization, Beauty for Freedom, for a long time, many times traveling with them on humanitarian missions to bring art therapy and other creative workshops to survivors of human trafficking. One of the trips we took in 2017 was to Ghana to work with teenagers who were rescued from having been trafficked to Lake Volta, forced to work in the fishing industry as slaves. Specifically, I taught a photography workshop at the school Challenging Heights in Winneba and would often roam the humble surrounding neighborhood with the kids as we all took pictures of the locals going about their day. These images are a mix of portraits of the kids and of the local villagers. You can learn more about it on my blog here.
Please tell us more about your process developing this collection.
One of my favorite things to do as a photographer is to explore a new environment and culture, to connect with locals and take pictures of them in their day-to-day lives. In Ghana, because I was mostly shooting accompanied by the school kids, I was able to get up close and personal, and immerse myself as more of a local. They valued me as someone coming to help their kids so no one seemed to feel threatened by me as a “foreigner”, even though they don’t often see any in that area. There was a level of trust and comfort many of my subjects felt, which I think translates in the images. The Ghanaian people I photographed were all very lovely and enjoyed having their photos taken, especially loving getting to see the photos right after I took them on the back of the camera.
Can you explain to me how your work has evolved since starting out?
My work has evolved quite a bit since I first started almost 20 years ago. I’ve tested and tried every type of photographic subject matter—from fashion and portraits to travel to even weddings, which has given me a colorful palette of learning opportunities. I used to enjoy creating fashion images with bigger teams of stylists, however, the more time goes on, the more I just enjoy to be alone with a humble camera shooting portraits of people in organic environments—in more of a street or documentary setting. I think I’ve naturally gotten to a place where my distinct style blends the two, applying my love for graphic art and sense of fashion to the street portraits I take.
As mentioned above you also offer collections as NFTs. Your work Nue York has been represented by Quantum. Can you tell more about it? How did you came to work with Quantum?
When I became interested in the NFT space, I knew nothing about it, but had just met a man named Spencer Lieberson who is Drift’s manager. He told me about Quantum and SuperRare and suggested I apply to both with the images from my book, Nue York: Self-Portraits of a Bare Urban Citizen, which are a series of self-portrait nude photographs taken in iconic, public places all over New York City. It turned out, Justin Aversano from Quantum and I had actually met years ago in New York so he knew me and about this series. Quantum offered for me to be a part of a contest to become a quantum artist and in February of this year, I dropped 50 images from the book. It was like a dream because they all sold out in about 30 seconds. Since, I was onboarded onto SuperRare and have been exploring several different platforms.
Which events have influenced you most?
Many things in my life have been influential I suppose… Moving to New York City alone for college was one of the first major events in my life — all of a sudden, I was this radically free, creative teenager with this big, unruly city at my fingertips—it was there that I learned how to run up, down, and into walls, doing whatever the hell I wanted. Burning Man was also and has been a huge influence in my life. I’ve been going since 2011 and it’s where I fully realized that I could be 110% myself—as weird and wild as I wanted to be—because, no matter what, there would always be people out there to hold hands and skip in the mud and the paint with. Otherwise, each one of my travels around the world has been a learning lesson in its own way; a new expression of my photography and opportunity for self-discovery. I traveled around Asia by myself in my early twenties, and that was one of my first greatest adventures where I truly fell in love with documentary photography.
What are your sources of inspiration?
I get very inspired by so many great artists and photographers, but also by everything around me—sometimes the smallest little exotic bugs can be the most beautifully graphic. Most of my favorite artists are classics: Steven Arnold, Irving Penn, Steve McCurry, Sebastiao Salgado, Salvador Dali, Jimmy Nelson, David LaChapelle, Martin Parr, Annie Liebovitz, Henri Cartier Bresson, Brassai, Vassily Kandinsky, Sandro Botticelli, the list goes on… At times when I’m feeling a little blank or lacking inspiration, a simple trip to a contemporary museum does the fix and immediately ignites my desire to create. There are also a lot of wonderful artists that I am now discovering by being involved in the NFT space which is really exciting. For example, I love Sanja Marusic’s work, Serkan Tekin, Greg Vivash, Brooke Didonato, Yener Torun, Synchrodogs, Shawn Theodore…
What are you working on now? And where is your photography going?
Lately, I’ve been really focused on the NFT community and in February after my Quantum drop, I created a magazine called The Modern Analogue to spotlight talented photographers in the space, like what DRAWLIGHTS is doing! I was really wanting to explore art and collect, and felt that Twitter was a really difficult place to do that, so I figured other people were probably feeling the same. By curating a platform where artists and collectors could come and get inspired by fabulous work, I felt like I could contribute in a way that was helpful to the space and give other artists a space to share their work and stories. Otherwise, the NFT world has re-inspired me to shoot more and to get my hands a little more dirty. After almost 20 years of shooting, I’ve gone in and out of phases of not picking up the camera for months as well as never leaving home without it, and during Covid, I had lost a bit of excitement, so this last year has been a whole new lease on my photography life! Where it will go, who knows, but I’m having fun at the moment, so I guess that’s all that matters.
Artist Bio
Erica Simone is a Parisian-New Yorker photographer, graphic designer, and artist, based in Los Angeles. Erica works on assignment for commercial and editorial clients from around the globe and her images have appeared in countless publications. Simone’s photographs have been exhibited in solo shows, group shows, and art fairs, as well as featured on TV and in documentaries. Erica Simone is the founder of The Modern Analogue fine-art NFT magazine, the co-founder and curator of Wonder Fair, an interactive art fair, and an ambassador to the non-profit organization, Beauty for Freedom, working directly with international survivors of human trafficking.
Photographer: Erica Simone
Twitter: @ericasimone
Instagram: @ericasimone
Foundation: Erica Simone
Photos copyright Erica Simone
DRAWLIGHTS | 1/1 – one post/one photographer, weekly. Off-chain and on-chain. By Peter Nitsch, lens-based artist, a member of Jenny Metaverse and lifetime Member of the Royal Photographic Society of Thailand.