“Andrea” (2014-ongoing) is a collaborative project by the artist duo Orejarena & Stein (Andrea Orejarena and Caleb Stein) that questions traditional conceptions of authorship by blurring the traditional barrier between photographer and model.
The project spans personal and commercial work—the duo has recently worked on a commission for Everlane conceived as an extension of this project, for instance— and it's intended as an ongoing set of lyrical, personal, romantic documents.
Read our Q&A with Andrea and Caleb.
Can you tell me how the project was born?
We are responding to the long-standing tradition of men photographing their wives, a tradition in which the woman is often not granted the status of author and in many cases serves as a muse. The afterlives of these images, once they are made and put out into the world, shows a clear pattern in which the men are celebrated while the women are relegated to the sidelines. The core concept in this body of work is that it is made as an artist duo. We take advantage of live digital monitors that can function as mirrors so that both of us can contribute equally to creative decisions such as the composition, lighting, etc. The project has gone on for as long as we’ve known each other. It’s a natural byproduct of our nomadic lives and the time we spend together. Over time these images have accumulated and we’ve started to think about how they can be in conversation with one another and about how they are starting to show the passing of time in an incredible way.
From commercial to personal work: how did you manage to blur this boundary?
It’s important for us to stay true to our vision. We would never take on a job that is inspired by the ‘Andrea’ series that would only credit one of us. Ultimately we both end up contributing to the final product—which is often the case with many married artists but usually the men get all the credit. We also have a very specific romantic, nomadic, and ethereal vision we go for that can work visually in personal work and commercial work. It’s always personal, really. It can be beneficial for commercial work to carry an intimate touch. We’re interested in the limits of what a photograph can communicate. We employ a range of photographic languages — this can vary from project to project, but in each body of work there is some form of investigation into the relationship between photography and memory, between photography and the notion of veracity.
How did you work together on this project? How was your creative process?
We work with a live monitor so that both of us can embody the photographer’s perspective. We then work together to make the decisions about the form, composition, lighting, focus, etc. We usually bounce ideas back very fluidly and are usually on the same wavelength. Before working as a duo, we had our hands in each other’s work anyway. We’ve always been the first point of contact for the development of any new work. For anyone that knows us well, they can see the influences we have on each other’s work from even before we became a duo.
What kind of role has Nature in these images?
We embrace nature whenever we have the opportunity. It has an enormous capacity to heal, inspire, and to put the nervous system at ease. Because of the profound tranquility that can be experienced when in nature it feels only natural to make photographs when in it, as a form of celebration. That’s why so many of the photographs in the series are made in nature. Recently, Everlane commissioned us to develop this work for one of their campaigns. We traveled around the US for almost two months — often sleeping in our car or pitching a tent in the wilderness. These photographs show our efforts to immerse ourselves into nature after two years of city lockdown. We were looking for a sense of freedom and openness that comes with being on the road, and we were thinking about how this approach engages with classical notions of the American Road Trip and the American Dream. We used this commission as an opportunity to indulge in a more directly personal and romantic approach to making work.
In general, what are the advantages of working as a couple?
The advantages are infinite for us. We are strong believers in the idea that when two minds are brought together the sum is greater than the parts. We know each other’s visual and psychological worlds very intimately, and that really helps us to make work together as a duo. A lot of our work revolves around our relationship to the U.S., which is both of our adopted homes. We are interested in exploring its mythologies and narratives, and how this manifests at home and abroad.
