MICHAEL MULLINS’ TINY LETTER

Yesterday at the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, I viewed an exhibition about the Japanese anti-photographer Daido Moriyama. 

I'd not heard of him, but he is one of the most talked about photographers, most famous for his 1972 photobook Farewell Photography, about the death of photography.

He explains: 'It's about my feelings of hate and wanting to say farewell to spiritually peaceful photographs ... photographs that lack all reality'.

It reminded me of theology's Death of God movement from about the same time, which argued that the traditional Christian idea of a loving personal God had become meaningless and unrealistic.

Realistic photos are most often taken by accident. But they are usually more thought provoking than 'beautiful' photographs.

Mine tend to show the ground, with disembodied feet telling a particular unwanted story. Coincidentally the exhibition includes a Moriyama image (above), just like mine. He regards such depictions as the most accurate recordings of what is real and unstaged. 

When I'm photographing framed artworks at exhibitions, I always try to avoid a reflection in the glass of me taking the photo. But after the Moriyama exhibition I will regard such intrusions in my images as more realistic. They document me viewing the artwork with my iPhone camera, and this more accurately represents the truth of the moment.

In the same way, when I see people who have taken selfies holding their phones to the bathroom mirror, I usually say to myself that they should be able to do better than that. But now I realise they are reflecting a particular truth that is absent from my more carefully staged selfies.

LINKS:
Daido Moriyama: Love Letters to Photography
Photos

I arrived in Paris on Thursday afternoon local time, for a stay with side trips that will last until mid-November.

Since 2017, I've been making two two-month visits here every year except during the pandemic. 

In the lead-up to my departure from Sydney, people ask if I'm excited. I don't say much because I'm not excited any more. I've become indifferent, though not in a negative way.

In the beginning, I was enthralled, acquiring my very own five-square-metre space in what many regard as the cultural capital of the world. 

But now it's something that just happens. Like the sun rises in the morning and sets in the evening.

My routine includes attending a different cultural institution every day.

Sometimes it's planned, but often it's something I stumble upon. Like yesterday's independent publishers' book fair, Salon Lisons Libres!, at the Blancs Manteaux hall in the Marais, which I'm very familiar with.

I was subject to jet lag and struggling to stay awake, but I found it very stimulating and wanted to engage more with the friendly stall holders who seemed to want to connect with me.

I have my photos and a link to the exhibition website, but for the most part it goes into my bank of cultural experience, which has become an important part of who I am.

I enjoy all the fresh expressions of vitality. In this case, it's the creativity in the book covers and the steadfastness of the hard-copy independent book publishers. Their positivity does not appear dimmed in the face of the shift to online and short-attention-span forms of storytelling. 

LINKS:
Salon Lisons 
Photos

As part of my stay in the Dutch city of Utrecht, I took a trip today to a town that straddles the border between the Netherlands and Germany. The Dutch part is known as Kerkrade and the German Herzogenrath. 

I walked what might be called in English New Street, which has the international border along its centre. It is named Nieuwstraat in Dutch side and Neustrasse in German. 

For me, there are obvious but less potent parallels with Albury-Wodonga, where I grew up on the New South Wales-Victoria state border in Australia.

The border I crisscrossed today meant a great deal during World War I and World War II, when it was fortified by the Germans. Then until the Schengen Area agreement came into force in 1995, there was a separate road on either side of a low wall. This forced vehicles to use the official border crossings while allowing pedestrians easier passage. 

I looked at a sample of the low wall that is embedded as a memorial in a roundabout on the actual border.

The national differences and regional geographic similarities would be apparent in the dialects that are spoken on either side. But I had to confine my observations to street signs, and the Dutch product range in the Aldi store on the Kerkrade side and the German in its Lidl rival in Herzogenrath.

What is most interesting is the geopolitical context of the rise of nationalism and right-wing politics, against the EU's philosophical and actual de-emphasis of borders. 

In the past few years, the Germans have reintroduced border checks. A few weeks ago I had to show my passport to German border guards who boarded my train as I entered Germany. 

About ten years ago, I visited the Museum of Europe in the village of Schengen on the border of France, Germany and Luxembourg. It was a celebration of the dissolution of meaningful borders, but this was beginning to be questioned by many Europeans with migration crisis emerging.

Today I wondered whether the wall along Nieuwstraat/Neustrasse might be reinstated within the next few years.

I’m staying with family outside Albury for a few days. Yesterday I crossed the border to visit Wodonga, where I grew up. 

I still read the Border Mail newspaper most days, and a few weeks ago noticed that the shop at the foot of the Wodonga Water Tower was now occupied by a bookseller, following the death of the cobbler whose business had been there since 1960.

Wodonga hadn’t had a bookshop for some years, but now boasts one, The Booktower. One step back from cultural oblivion!

In order to satisfy my curiosity and get an idea of the ratio of low culture to high culture here, I’ve been trying to find out how many liquor outlets there are in Wodonga, as I‘ve suspected there would be dozens. 

I got my answer this morning when I went to the local Council’s ‘Make Wodonga Yours‘ consultation website. In a figure from 2023, it referred to ‘95 licensed liquor venues, including hotels, pubs, bottle shops, clubs and restaurants.’

Of course the counter argument is that producing high quality wine and spirits is something the region has to be proud of. It is certainly a major tourist drawcard, and the locals are more knowledgeable about wine than most Australians. But you can only go so far with that reasoning.

I know that Wodonga is not alone in its abundance of liquor outlets and paucity of bookshops. Liquor is big business in most regional and indeed suburban and inner city areas of Australia. 

Bookshops are also declining in the face of social media and online sales of books and ebooks. Last time I was in Albury, I went into the local Dymocks franchise and observed that there was only a handful of books. They were displayed on the shelves in a curious sparse fashion, with the covers rather than the spines exposed to the customers visiting the store.  

It reminded me of my one and only visit to Milikapiti, which occurred coincidentally in 1989.

I was spending a couple of months in the Top End. Jesuit priest Pat Mullins (no relation) offered to take me to Bathurst and Melville Islands, which is home to the Tiwi islanders and their distinct culture.

He arranged for me to meet and interview some representatives of the Stolen Generation about their experience of being taken from their families and brought up in the Garden Point Catholic mission.

I eventually edited the recordings into a radio documentary that was broadcast in the ABC's Encounter religious series.

I interviewed them with an open mind and found they had quite nuanced views of their forced removal from their families. Their generally positive and affectionate memories of the priests and nuns who brought them up led me to title the documentary 'Another Mob of Mothers and Fathers'.

I recall being proud to present a view of the Stolen Generation that had positives as well as negatives, as it would have been something of a revelation to listeners who were only hearing negative stories. But on reflection, that probably had something to do with their being in the contact circle of the priest.

In the years since, I have been less inclined to accept that there were too many positives. Indeed the Garden Point Mission was featured in the Bringing Them Home Report in 1997. It included stories of sexual abuse and trauma that my interviewees failed to mention.

That would force me into a rushed purchase of a new unit, to maintain the supply of hot water. It would frustrate my desire to make an orderly switch from gas to electricity.

So three months ago, I decided to act immediately, even though the old unit was still performing well. I called my longtime builder Jesse to ask him to recommend a reliable company to install an electric heat pump.

What I didn't realise was that he was finally available to tackle the long list of repairs and improvements that I'd been requesting him to attend to for a least five years. Jesse had done the previous renovation of the house, two years or so before I purchased it in 2001.

He hadn't been able to come to my house in recent years because of the labour shortage and COVID, and it was seriously run down. A few years ago my neighbours in the adjoining terraces were worried that our row was literally falling down.

I'd been putting aside funds for the day that Jesse would come, though I stopped believing it would happen. He ended up fixing the cracks in the walls and attending to many other structural and cosmetic issues that owners of 19th century terrace houses can expect to face. The task list kept growing and he worked in my house five days a week for two and a half months.

It turned out to be an opportunity I thought I'd never get. I was not limited to repairs, but I could upgrade the house after two of us had lived in it for 22 years. I was not interested in a luxury upgrade, but instead wanted to make the move from gas to electricity.

So there is now a heat pump, induction stove and electric heating and cooling. I have solar skylights to brighten the dark rooms, and a new set of solar panels with a battery on the way. The promise is the elimination of energy bills, though it will take up to 20 years to recoup my investment.

After the long intense focus on my house for much of the winter, I'm now facing the first part of the northern winter, spending two months in my tiny 5 square metre alternative residence in Paris.

I very much enjoy my environmentally responsible 'small footprint' existence, though there's no escaping the reality that the flights to get here and back have me leaving a large carbon footprint.

When I returned from Paris a few weeks ago, I brought with me a gossip magazine titled Johnny, for the member of my household who grew up in francophone Mauritius.

It revealed hitherto unknown details about the life of the late French rock and pop idol Johnny Hallyday, who was sometimes described in English-speaking countries as 'the biggest star you've never heard of'.

This morning I mentioned that I was going to the local Dendy cinema to see the documentary John Farnham: Finding the Voice.

My friend looked at me quizzically until I pointed to the Johnny magazine, which he had devoured.

Farnham was of course not recognised outside Australia until the international success of his 1986 Whispering Jack album. That followed Johnny Farnham's career-saving rebrand as John Farnham.

The rebrand was necessary because he'd never managed to live down the ridicule he continued to suffer due to the overwhelming success of his first release, the 1968 novelty song Sadie (The Cleaning Lady).

His promoters couldn't get it out of the minds of Australians who were growing up during the late 1960s.

It seems that the emotional resonance of the unsophisticated tunes of our childhood remains, no matter how hard we try to populate our conscious and unconscious selves with cultural content of greater depth. That's probably not a bad thing.

Today is May Day, a public holiday here in France. It has added significance this year, with 300 marches expected as part of a mobilisation exceptionnelle against the Government's move to raise the pension age from 62 to 64.

Friends in Australia have seen media images of the sometimes violent protests. They've expressed concern that I may be affected. As it happens, I have kept away and only heard them in the distance.

I have witnessed just one orderly procession, two weeks ago in Avignon. But it is impossible to avoid seeing the damage to public and private property, such as burned rubbish bins and cracked glass.

I assume most foreigners are unsympathetic because they don't receive the pension themselves until around 67. Many would see it as an arguably dignified but unattractive display of a French sense of entitlement.

I agree. But it's what you get when you have widespread discontent in a free society that values the right to protest.

I have read about of the struggles of working class families in northern France, in the autobiographical novels of the young contemporary author Edouard Louis. He sees President Macron representing the privileged classes, and wrote a New York Times op-ed a few years ago with the title 'Why My Father Votes for Le Pen'.

In selecting when to travel outside Paris, I've had to mindful of the protest days that have occurred roughly once a week, with reduced rail services.

I decided to purchase a Eurailpass for this two month stay in Paris, and have been travelling to cities in France including Amiens on Saturday, and Tours, Avignon, Lille and Chartres earlier. I've also been to the Netherlands, Zurich for my first visit to Switzerland, as well as Liechtenstein and Innsbruck in Austria.

Amiens in particular offered a view of the two faces of France. There was the beautiful Cathedral, canals and grand buildings that tourists love to see, but also evidence of the ordinariness of the lives of many people in a large city not far from the town in which Edouard Louis grew up.

I'm about to leave the Dutch beach town of Zandvoort after a five night stay. It's currently 2 degrees and I didn't come here for the beach. The main attraction was a four day contemplative photography retreat.

The focus was Miksang, a practice of taking photos that is not about documenting or telling stories. Instead its goal is 'pure' seeing.

I have learned a lot about sense-perception in general, including deeper appreciation of everyday delights such as good coffee and wine.

Applying the Miksang principle, I don't pre-judge the wine by studying its label or provenance. I taste it.

I don't attempt to apply sophisticated terminology such as acidity or aroma. I just appreciate it in the moment. The wine has a story, but knowing that does not really help my enjoyment of it.

In the same way, Miksang photos don't tell us much about their subjects or context. They're not meant to. They are close-ups of everyday objects. They often appear artful, but beauty is not the intention.

I heard about Miksang last year during a conversation with a friend who lives in Kyoto, Japan. That led me to read about it and discover that a retreat was taking place at a convenient time and place.

I have always prided myself in my ability to analyse. But the teacher Helen would caution me against thinking and identifying and naming.

She was teaching me to be more alive to visual perception, and encouraging me to communicate it through photos rather than words or concepts.

When posting our photos on her website, she insisted that we not give them a title. I had always thought that artists who called their works 'untitled' were being lazy. But now I understand they are simply helping us to perceive their art without pre-judgment.
 

The loss of mental agility associated with getting older is usually a source of regret. I remember my mother developing dementia and referring to 'that thing' when she couldn't name an object. I regretted her loss. But now I can see a silver lining in moving beyond the need to name things, talk about concepts and tell stories.

This is a tiny letter from my tiny five square metre space in the first arrondissement, my base for the next two months.

The city is almost a month into spring, but you wouldn't know it from the mood of the people. Swarms of police and piles of uncollected garbage are the most visible signs of the malaise.

There are a frequent protests and strikes aimed at thwarting President Macron's resolve to increase the eligibility age for the country's unsustainable pension, from 62 to 64. Whether or not it is successful, there is likely to be a groundswell of support for the election of a far right government in 2027.

I arrived on Thursday, before getting out of the city a day later on Friday. I travelled 80 minutes south-west by train to the famous cathedral location of Chartres.

The city's well preserved and restored cathedral was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1979, three and a half decades after it was mercifully left intact by an American World War II colonel who defied an order to target the German soldiers who were supposed to be holed up inside.

I had long wanted to visit Chartres Cathedral after being intrigued when, in the very secular setting of Melbourne University, one of my lecturers presented it as a pillar of Western civilisation.

Upon arrival, I experienced it as just another cathedral populated by tourists taking photos. Initially its stained glass windows and other features and artefacts lacked surprise. But, as one of them, I soon got to see why tourists go there to take photos. I found the experience of being in that space remarkably transfiguring.

Perhaps being on that higher plane has affected my appreciation of the art and cultural exhibits I visited in the days since.

These have included an exhibition of photos and objects relating to the colonisation of Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. I spent two hours pouring over its contents, in an unpretentious setting in a relatively small room at the base of a suburban apartment block.

The following day I viewed a most unexpected sexually explicit exhibition of queer art at the Arab World Institute. The Institute is an organisation founded by France and 18 Arab countries 'to research and disseminate information about the Arab world and its cultural and spiritual values'.

It is pleasing that these values are culture embrace LGBTQIA+ living that has to be hidden. I was moved by the obvious courage of these legend artists being at the same time 'out and proud' and Arab.

Yesterday's exhibition was appropriately bleak for this moment in history. It showcased the mixed media works of Chilean artist Eugenio Tellez, at La Maison de l'Amérique latine.

It was a curiously matter of fact inglorious celebration of war that was in fact anti-war. If Chartres Cathedral was about the making of human civilisation, these works represent its 'disarticulation'.