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Robin Taudevin in March 2006
Why I photograph
Photographs can inspire. For this reason alone, they are worth viewing.
However photographs can also inform. When photographs both inspire
and inform, this seems to me a compelling reason to view photography.
It becomes significant and valuable. I believe in the need to strive
for a broad understanding of complex issues. Although most forums
for viewing photography are necessarily restricted in scope, photographs
do have the potential to inspire compassion. This crucial affectation
may in turn encourage learning and greater understanding. Through
understanding ignorance and injustice might be combated.
Two years ago I spent time photographing in public, on city streets.
Informed by a tremendous body of historical and contemporary street
photography, I learned ways to view strangers, a form of photography
I love. However, like most photographs, these are stolen, and although
they occasionally amuse or reveal a significance of some sort, they
are at best superficial. More recently, I chose to photograph asylum
seekers in Glasgow in order to document the experience of asylum
families in the UK. This brought me into an intimacy and proximity
with my subject that was challenging, frustrating and time consuming.
I learned the power of story telling through a series of images.
Photographing strangers who became friends was very rewarding.
Visually, I am interested in what is momentary and fleeting. I am
constantly chasing gesture and physical exchange, and trying to
find ways to chronicle the day-to-day interactions between people
that enable a society to function. I am trying to learn how to use
photography to record significant themes by looking at seemingly
insignificant actions. I am excited by photographs, and endlessly
interested in my own work, despite repeated failures. Over and over
I will try something, and fail, creating ‘sketches’,
ideas that are works in progress. Occasionally, eventually, these
ideas work, and come out as photographs that have some sophistication
and are able to communicate something beyond the superficial. It
is exciting.
I am currently working in Timor-Leste. I have worked here in the
past, for an NGO after the country was burned in 1999, and later
as a writer of history for a Commission of enquiry into the human
rights violations during the Indonesian occupation. I have returned
again, and am beginning to photograph contemporary Timor and to
explore some of its more pressing issues such as health, the environment,
education and the local economy. Despite having spent ten years
visiting this country, I remain very ignorant of it. Photography
is a way for me to stoke my curiosity, and to learn.
- Robin Taudevin, February 2006
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"Born on the 14th of March, 1977,
in Bouganville, Papua New Guinea, Robin lived a life defined
by travel, international affairs, human rights, extreme
sports, and photography. His most distinctive characteristic,
aside from his riotously wicked sense of humour, was his
clear understanding of right and wrong and his deep seated
desire to expose social injustice.
Robin went to school at the British and Jakarta International
schools in Indonesia and spent two years at St. Peters in
Brisbane, Australia. He qualified for his glider’s
license at 16. After high school, Robin spent time working
for AusAid in East Timor. Robin read history, archaeology
(and skydiving!) at Glasgow University. He spent a year’s
exchange at Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina, so
that he could be near a cheap drop zone and to get his pilot’s
license.
As a young graduate, Robin used his inheritance from his
Isle of Lewis grandfather to work as a volunteer in Guatemala.
While in Central America, Robin was ejected from a US embassy
for sliding down the bannister and when asked to explain
his actions he replied “they were irresistable.”
Timor Aid then employed Robin and he returned to East Timor.
Robin worked in sustainable development for many international
aid organisations and was regularly employed by the United
Nations. He also spent some time working as an editor for
his father’s publishing company, Otford Press, which
focussed on human rights issues.
Robin worked as an independent photographer in West Papua,
the Maluccas, Banda Aceh in Sumatra, Jakarta, Sydney, Glasgow
and East Timor. Robin had a clear vision to use his photography
to inform, inspire and bridge the gap between one island
of suffering to the next. In the last year of his life he
made a huge impact with his photographic work of Glasgow
asylum seekers. He returned to East Timor to be with his
partner, Bree, and in the last two weeks of his life he
proved his fearless desire to expose social injustice by
photographing the Dili riots up close and personal.
Robin drowned while freediving off the coast of East Timor
on the 14th of May 2006. Robin died a young man, internationally
respected as an individual of high moral standing and an
accomplished photographer.
Robin's thirst for extreme sports, I feel,
was a need to escape the confines of his body; to challenge
it in ever new ways, be it skydiving, base jumping, gliding,
flying, long distance running, rock climbing, free diving.
I think he always had a sense that he was so much bigger
than his body. And he has proved that to be so.
We must remember that he died in a place that he loved,
with the woman that he loved, doing what he loved and doing
it well. He lived a full life and accomplished more than
most will with thrice his years under their belts."
- Allison Julia Taudevin
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