SNOECKS
Lisa De Boeck + Marilène Coolens = memymom
Interview by Geert Stadeus
October 2015
The Misfit, 1996 (The Umbilical Vein)
That two photographers form a duo is already an exceptional given and memymom certainly is a misfit when it comes to that. Marilène Coolens and Lisa De Boeck are mother and daughter. They have been working together since Lisa was 5 years old. Today their place in the Belgian Photography world is assured and the interest from abroad is growing for their distinct aesthetics and the often mysterious images they create. Snoecks made a selection out of 25 years of intriguing images and memymom guides us.
Between 1990 and 2003 Marilène Coolens photographed her daughter Lisa De Boeck within scenes and costumes that were often proposed by Lisa herself. When she turned 18, she stopped modelling for a while in front of her mother’s lens and they slowly started working together as memymom - both behind the camera this time. It’s only two years ago that their ‘analogue archive’ grew into the exhibition ‘The Umbilical’ Vein in Amsterdam.
Marilène: I always was in the mood to photograph and luckily Lisa was always glad to participate. Later on, when she became a teenager she liked a lot less. It are staged images and I directed rather much, but still you can see and feel Lisa’s naturel.
Lisa: Because I understood what you meant. We watched a lot of movies together and shared the same reference frame. We sensed each other very well. Making those images, was our family life for a long while. It also remained very intimate, until we showed the images after a fascinating selection at The Flemish Arts Centre ‘de Brakke Grond’. As a teenager I even took some images from our walls when I knew some of my friends were coming over, because I thought they would not understand or take it wrong.
Marilène: When I was in New York back in the nineties I took a book from Cindy Sherman back with me, a book we still cherish enormously. She’s been an inspiration to us throughout the first years.
ME, 2012 (Stitch me Up, Doc)
Lisa: We were in our painting phase at that time. Painting my friends and me and then photographing to afterwards cut up those images in and making collages. That a was a very intense phase, very emotional, with a lot of deformations. It was something that had surfaced from deep within me. I did not think about it too much, but it did show how I was feeling back then.
Bleeding From the Belly Button, 2014 (The Baby Blues)
Marilène: This is about our mother-daughter relationship.
Lisa: People always have an opinion about that and sometimes you hear them say: Cut the Umbilical Cord! I wanted to overdramatize that for just once. I believe if you would cut it you open up a wound and a lot of the images from The Baby Blues fling with that theme. I also like showing secrets in plain sight, so we put a lot of ourselves in small details of which we are the only ones who know, unless we tell off course. But all is done with the right amount of self-reflection. People don’t have to know everything to understand our story.
Will I Turn Too? & Bad, Bad Mother, 2014 (The Baby Blues)
Marilène: It’s good the way that the straightjacket and other elements find their way back in the images of The Baby Blues. In this case also the Liberty Fabric - freedom as an obversion of the straightjacket. It’s a body of work that fits when you piece it together.
Lisa: It’s the simplicity of the symbolism that we push a bit further. We worked hard on this serie and gave it a lot of thought We felt that this was important for us. That in a manner of speaking we could get one a step ahead.
A Perezian Time, 2012
Lisa: This picture was taken when I stayed behind in a hotel room in the Sheraton in Brussels. I just love the Sheraton. The good kind of kitsch, really exciting. I love going there, for it’s one of the few places in my hometown I feel I can hide away. You can see the city from the window, but you’re no longer part of it. I had my camera with me and the light was right.
The Escort, 2013
Lisa: We went three weeks to Thailand...
Marilène: And this was taken in The Baiyoke Sky Hotel in Bangkok.
Lisa: It’s the highest tower in Thailand and I absolutely wanted to sleep there. Another kitschy hotel, where all the tourists are packed together in one big tower. But it still offers fantastic interiors. We already wanted to make the image of ‘The Escort’ for a long time and here everything felt just right all of a sudden. We bought the dress and the shoes for that occasion in Bangkok. Not long after we started taking the images in the hotel room...
Marilène: ... And it just would not work out at first
Lisa: No, indeed. During the beginning of a shoot when I model I am very silly at first, which is very funny but I just didn’t get into the right atmosphere straight away. Marilène does not bother because she knows I need this silliness to get into the character. I’m never ashamed when I’m with her. That’s why we work so well together. Playing a role and unveiling those double layers, it only works when I’m in her presence
Golden Boy, 2011
Lisa: this is Vadim Vosters, the artist - the painter. We met at the Photo Festival in Knokke. I found him very handsome and gave him my card straight away and told him that I would love to photograph him one day. He liked that idea and eventually we made this image. It started out with a golden beard but eventually we painted his face entirely gold. We became friends over time and he was the one who made us aware of the existence of the art world. We had not really considered exhibiting and all that comes with that, so Vadim was indirectly the one who stimulated us. exhibiting and everything that comes along with it.
Whodunnit, 2012
In the further Title-less Whodunnit-series, memymom explores in atmospheric and colourful images the psychological darkness. Lisa plays in every image the typical plot of a crime: Witness, Victim, Accomplice and Culprit.
Marilène: when we got this idea we immediately went to the Marché aux Puces looking for clothes. Sometimes there’s not much to find but time this we found everything we needed to do this shoot. Clothes are very important. There’s always something that wrings. Here it turned out very old fashioned and it all departed from improvisation.
Lisa: I took a huge amount of positions during the shoots, imagining that all the other characters were there at the same time. The choices of the positions and postures of the characters fell automatically into place when we were editing the images.
She’s a Beast, 2014
Lisa: Carlijn Koppelmans is a performer who works for Jan Fabre amongst many others. We’ve worked with her the last couple of times and it’s fun because even after two shoots we have enough images to choose from. She really gets into it and I’m still amazed to see how far people are prepared to go. Magnificent. I was actually looking for a landscape for a commissioned artwork and then we drove by this industrial piece of land next to a highway full of interesting places. So we phoned Carlijn and told her: We need you - naked - on an industrial land next to the E40 highway!