Helga Paris: The Light Between The Shadows... The Light, It's Always The Light
‘Women at the Treff-Modelle Clothing Factory’, 1984 @Helga Paris
“The amateur photographer is like a lover, he takes photos in a friendly manner, only of what he likes. And this is how I feel as well”. Helga Paris, the photographer who became well-known to the general public as a chronicler of the everyday life in East Germany, was born in Poland and grew up in Zossen of the post East Germany (DDR), the hometown of her mother, southern of Berlin. Helga ended up there with her mother and her sister as war refugees, just like many others during that difficult time. Influenced by two of her aunts who were taking countless pictures during the forties, fifties and sixties with their small cameras, Helga Paris' “lens” was shaped in a way that has created a need to emerge a relationship to people she photographed. At the time when the exhibitions started in the early eighties, people were very interested in this kind of photographs because they showed their real lives.
Observing her mature face in a close-up shot during one of her interviews, you can see that her gaze is full of kindness, purity, warmth and understanding. Undoubtedly her blue eyes have seen a lot... It seems that she is more interested in the emotions that a moment can infiltrate, than the photo itself. Whenever they ask her to talk about her work, she talks about life stating that “technically it is not that difficult to take a photo, what matters is what the person's stand is towards life and their point of view”.
‘Women at the Treff-Modelle Clothing Factory’, 1984 @Helga Paris
Just like most of the photographers of her generation, Helga Paris is self-taught. Although she studied fashion design in Berlin and was introduced into the artists’ circle by her former husband, Ronald Paris who was a painter, what eventually draw her attention was the art of photographic documentary that she managed to transubstantiate in a genre of social study by unfolding, through her lens, the hard everyday landscape that the second World War and the communist regime of the country have caused bringing restrictions, loss, destruction and decadency. However, at the same time we can see that the gaze of the photographer has viewed the world with curiosity, compassion and durability which creates an unparalleled beauty.
She took photos of her neighbors’ everyday life in Berlin and the women who were working in the textile industry (she herself has done her practice in the textile industry during her studies). Helga had a creative dialogue with these women that led to a series of portraits where the femininity is restricted by the industrial landscape.
Because of her daughter Jenny, who studied at Halle an der Saale, Helga Paris chose it as the place to take photos during 1983-1985, that later has led to her exhibition which was titled “Buildings and faces”. And this has been one of her most difficult projects because of the negative attitude of the people she decided to capture. She started taking photos of the streets of Halle and the people that were passing by who eventually were mean to her. She admitted in one of her interviews that this was a situation that she never experienced anywhere else before. Discouraged by people's comments she was about to stop but then she started to have conversations with them and asking their permission before taking their photos, which had a positive outcome. “They all accepted!”. This is how she realised that the people of Halle were particularly sensitive and they felt uncomfortable that someone could have pictured the moments where they were unkempt and humiliated wearing their heavy clothes imprinting their decay. Helga didn't have any intention to show the destruction of the city. On the contrary she was focused on the dialogue she had with the people and was interested in the narration of their everyday life stories in this specific period.
After all, “every person emits something beautiful even if the person is not beautiful if we would use the classic meaning of the word. What I find beautiful is to be open to the moment. This is exactly what I want people to feel when they look at my photos: to be open in order to see this particular moment”, she says, and this is the greatness of diversity.
Words / ZOE KOUSAKI