Pinckers explains he has a lot of material still to go through, including interviews with couples who have escaped. “There was a guy who’d escaped on his motorbike with the girl on the back; they were chased out of the village by family and villagers with knives. It was something they had been planning to do and wanted to do, but the chance didn’t come easily. When suddenly there was a small window they took their chance. And that sense of drama is something that is also very cinematic and very ‘Bollywood.’ But it is also a very serious problem — the moment they run they break off all communication with family and friends out of fear they might be found and killed.”
This mass of material has given Pinckers some difficult choices which he says he’ll make when he edits the photobook that he plans to publish next year. For the Europalia exhibition, he has decided to keep things simple. “There will be three light boxes, the largest of which is 2.3×1.8m – they are all abstract images. One picture is of a cave with light shining through. It’s a hiding place where people go for protection – a place for love to happen.
“The milk being spilt is an allusion to sex, and the cremation is death; it goes with love and romance, and the idea of honour killings. The decision to stick with abstract images was to keep things open,” he adds. “So at first you look at the image and it seems open, but then when you learn what the images are about you start making connections.”
See more of Max’s work here.
First published in the October 2013 issue. You can buy the issue here.
