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TRACEY MOFFATT, Job Hunt, de la serie Scarred for Life I, 1994

- Tracey, what do you think about the idea of linking the theme of adolescence to the series Scarred for Life? Do they have anything in common to you?

My Scarred for Life pictures do deal with true (told to me by friends) tragic yet funny stories of childhood, mostly at the time of adolescence. So they aren't in a sense fairy stories or even fiction. They are completely true moments that I could never have dreamed up. My other photo works are complete fictions though for example Laudanum (1998), that is a sort of twisted fantasy. I do like the line from the Stephen King novel/film Dolores Claiborne; an accident is sometimes an unhappy woman's best friend. There could be so many interpretations of this line, perhaps meaning that a tragedy can change us forever and for the best!!!

- I know few people who look back with fondness on this period of their life but may I ask: What does adolescence mean to you?

Adolescence was a hideous repulsive painful time that turned me into an artist, Thank God. I have never in my life ever met anyone who has looked back with fondness on this period in his or her life. Who the hell have you been talking to???

- You said in one occasion: "if am not concerned with verisimilitude, I'm not concerned with capturing reality; I'm concerned with creating it myself". I associate this, in the case of your work, with fables for adults. Do you consider yourself a storyteller?

Yes, I do consider myself a storyteller in that I like there to be elements of narrative in my photo works. I would like the viewer to look into the image and attach his or her own reading.

- Do you have a favourite story?

No, not really. Anything with a happy ending, which means that The Little Match Girl is not on my list. By the way, what mind thought that one up! (…)