Women According to Nadia Lee Cohen

 

Nadia Lee Cohen’s work needs little introduction on i-D. From her collaboration with Millicent Hailes in 2015 to her solo show in Spain last summer, we’ve been, like so many others, continually fascinated by the elevated, cinematic portrayals of womanhood the photographer creates. And, like a method actor continually fine-tuning her role as one such woman, Nadia too remained a source of fascination; just as mythologised as the bodies in her images.

Based in Los Angeles and often assumed to be American, owing to the recurring motifs of old Hollywood and classic Americana in her work, Nadia in fact grew up in London, moving west after graduating from London College of Fashion. This lineage, and its juxtapositions, can be traced throughout her first book, Women, an anthology of her signature work.

 
A mixture of subjects, some haughty looking, others less guarded, some familiar, some unknown, the book embodies the very best of Nadia’s world. Whether it’s Alexa (Demie) poolside, caked in makeup but still tanning herself beneath the Hollywood sign, or Lilly, tentatively peering out of her curtains yet completely nude, or Anja, pregnant, solemn, leaning against a kitchen counter, there’s infinite stories wrought across each of their faces and bodies.
 
Here, Angela Hill of IDEA, the publishers behind Women -- its fastest selling book of all time -- discusses with her the long journey to creation, the many different artists, actors and directors that informed its narrative, and shooting Charli XCX in a motel full of sex workers and customers.

 
**What were you like as a child and how was your childhood?
 
**I was quite unfeminine, didn’t like wearing dresses or brushing my hair. I was raised on a farm in rural England by very relaxed parents. I spent my time running around wet fields covered in mud, hunting for fossils, stepping in cow shit and building fairy houses out of twigs. I believed in everything there was to believe in; Father Christmas, witches, fairies -- the lot. Nothing could stunt or interrupt my imagination, probably because of how remote the surroundings were.
 
**Why was I so moved by these images? I was hesitant about publishing this book at first, it was the polar opposite of everything we had done before and I am steeped in my love of documentary-style grunge street-type photography. At first the images are brash and obvious and screaming out at you from the page. When we received the first advance copies in the office. I looked through the book and felt more and more emotional. I walked home mentally going over details from some of the images, some subjects appeared so desolate to me, so beaten up by life (we see Scarlett, young yes but already having that world weary look, sitting simultaneously smoking and breast feeding in Hampstead; the lighting is exquisite, the setting dark and heavy, foreboding almost. On later viewings of this image I am drawn to the toast rack, flowers and vase; exactly the vase and flowers my grandmother would have. It’s one of my favourite images in the book), there was a sadness, more than a melancholy, because maybe one indulges in melancholy from time to time and these felt like lives lived that there was a lot to forget about.
 
**I was reminded of the film The Thin Blue Line (1988) -- both in terms of the imagery/scenarios and the soundtrack too which is in turns haunting, plaintive and beautiful. The film is a reconstruction documentary (and was controversial because of this) as is Women.

 
**The location of the last image in the book is of a flat in Finchley and I was reminded of November Sunday evenings at home, suburban London, as a teenager; a feeling of despair, a heaviness, the thought of school the next day, the routine of every Sunday. I got the feeling some of the women you photographed were left alone in every sense after the shoot -- all the glitz and glamour gone -- just themselves to deal with. Is this a valid assumption?
 
**I agree in the sense that there is an approach of adding and subtracting throughout. Adding in terms of the hair, makeup, nails, and general theatrics of their appearance. Subtraction however, in the form of the setting, posing and mood; this is where the darker element settles in. The locations, even if domestic, tend to be somewhat remote or desolate. I'm personally drawn to this sort of space and want the models to reflect their surroundings in their pose, or ‘non-pose’ actually. The idea is that they are captured mid-movement, off guard, or a split second after asking them to relax, slump, hunch, ‘be sleepy’, etc. The majority of the best images seem to be towards the end of a shoot, when the model is maybe slightly more comfortable and has had time to settle into the situation and accept their respective character. Scarlett in particular — tiny baby Mosco was only two months old and was screaming and crying as he didn’t want to feed, the atmosphere was quite intense until he eventually latched on after around eight attempts, so there was a genuine sense of relief felt at the moment that photo was taken.

 
You are in the book, maybe in more ways than just your self portrait. A photographer friend of ours was in the office recently and he said something very interesting in that he didn’t resonate with other photographers’ work if he couldn’t see something of that photographer in their work. And then I thought of how much of Nan Goldin’s work is Nan Goldin herself, or Corinne Day or Tina Barney themselves. We see Finchley and Hampstead juxtaposed with Palm Springs, Brooklyn and LA in the location credits; was it just a practical decision as that was where the models were or was it important for you to revisit your London background and mix it with the high contrast of LA?
 
It did feel important to have London in there. This was one of the elements I felt missing when I looked at the body of work around two years ago; so I made a conscious effort to photograph the places that resonated. The sentimentality is present in the smaller details such as the popping burnt toast and patriotic England mug in “Shocking”. Or the copy of The Sunday People and pint of milk in Scarlett’s; these are nostalgic memories for me. I initially wanted to travel to California as it all seemed very preserved in terms of locations and signage that were still intact from the late 70s-early 80s, and I'm definitely not an advocate for modern architecture. I felt this was missing in the UK, but the more time I spent away from the UK the sooner I realised that this isn’t the case at all. I just struggle with a tendency to become blind to what inspires me about a place unless I am away from it for a long period of time. I’ve actually just got back to the UK following the longest I’ve ever been out of the country and the smallest elements start to feel novelty and quintessentially British. I really start to notice and appreciate every Mr Kipling cake.

 
**Do you agree with this sentiment that, like Freud’s dream analysis, you are every subject in this book?
 
**That’s hard to answer without sounding pretentious, but yes, not in an overt way, probably just in the choice of an object. I’m not sure if this is a great example, but there is a wig that is used in several images that we named ‘Aunty Paulene’. The name came from a time when my mum's friend Paulene turned up at her house sporting it and it wasn’t received in the way that she had hoped, as mum fell about laughing. So she quickly whipped it off and I adopted it. The wig actually looks a bit like my hair, so perhaps this suggests some sort of repressed Freudian desire to inflict this hairstyle on several people.
 
**The book was the fastest selling of any book we have published; what do you think most people’s reasons are for wanting these images so much? For me, I want to look at them again and again and every time I do I notice something else (I have the same feeling with Van Gogh, I notice one flower more than I had ever done before or the way the wood in a chair is painted); another intriguing detail, a fold of fabric, colours, lighting -- they are works of art, each one a tableau, a film, movie that the viewer can construct in their mind. How long did it take from the idea of an image to casting, staging and achieving the final print you were happy with?
 
**I can’t get over that and probably never will. I’m completely speechless at the response it had. I don’t know because I can’t look at them from an objective perspective. Though I do think people enjoy narrative and storytelling. I certainly do in the photography work that I admire, even if it is predominantly documentary, the capture of drama within a still image can make the most mundane of situations magical. One of my favourite books is Ray’s a Laugh by Richard Billingham, the situations of his mother and father in a Birmingham council flat have those same feelings that you mentioned for me in terms of noticing something new every time I look at them. I feel like I've gone off topic, so to answer your question it took absolutely ages from initial idea to execution, especially when I ran out of money for production and had to produce the shoots myself; but those were almost the most fun.

 
I have a stream of consciousness that plays out words, stills from films, music, images etc like triggers that inspire me; it changes from time to time but it has long been there since childhood and it often plays out like this; herbs, British Folk Music, Essex Marshes, owls, eagles and kites, Ralph Vaughan Williams, KES, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, The Go-Between, Edwardiana… like a mantra I have to come back to remember in my work to stick to what is ‘me’. Would you say your main inspiration is film? Which films or directors have really moved you? I love the feeling of watching something and feeling changed afterwards, feeling “OK, that can be done”, “that does exist, that brilliance” and I strive to achieve my goals all over again.
 
 
**Yes and I almost feel guilty for having the same inspirations, but you can’t help what initially shapes you and I continually revisit those with the guilt that I haven’t found something new. A lot of it is from film absolutely, I owe a lot of it to my punk teenage boyfriend who had impeccable taste in film, music and art. I think my taste grew from that. It does come from everywhere though, not just Stanley Kubrick and Fellini. I’m interested in food packaging, signage, pointless trinkets and personal objects in charity shops. Also any artwork that puts a spotlight on mundanity. Duane Hanson’s sculptures epitomise this idea and have been a constant source of wonderment and inspiration. How fabulous would it be to have one in my living room one day.

 
Which was the most difficult image to achieve?

 Charli’s without a doubt. It was photographed towards the end of the project and I had to go back to shooting in a similar style to how I started, with minimal team and minimal funds. Charli is a famous person and we had never met, so when her management asked if there would be ‘security’ at the location I had to explain that there would not… I drove around Hollywood on Friday night to location scout with Sami Knight (hairstylist) and remembered a particular motel. It’s run by this friendly man that I met five years previously, we drove by and it still looked as great as I remembered, he was still there, quietly vacuuming the green carpeted steps outside as though no time had passed. He remembered me and said we could shoot there the next night for the price of a room; $145, a bargain. However, when we turned up the following evening, (now Saturday night) it was quite a different atmosphere. The solitary vacuumer was replaced with a flood of men in tracksuits looking for debauchery. They were intermingled with determined looking sex workers. I found the situation interesting, but Charli’s management didn’t quite feel the same and were terrified generally of placing her in a situation that was unsafe, also concerned that someone might see her and snap a photo on their phone and sell it to TMZ or something. The entire night was a dramatic obstacle course of trying to get this photo at any given quiet moment (there were none). Charli was marvellous though, very calm and this shows in the final image which reflects none of the chaos that was felt that night. This was the only photograph I wrote about in the back of the book, titled ‘Motel Notes’.

 **Can you remember when you first thought of doing this series or was it that it was only after meeting one particular woman that you felt inspired to make it a project?

 **I started in university, it was part of a project that I shot for my end of year assignment and I was naive enough to think that I could complete it in a year. Thank god I didn’t, it would have been terrible. My tastes changed and developed so much over the course of its progress, though there are one or two still in the book from those very early photo shoots that show the progression.

 **What next for you? What is driving you forward into 2021?

 **I’m the worst at working on more than one thing at a time. I was supposed to be working on something else last year but I put everything off in order to get the book out. I’m reluctant to mention what the next thing might be in case it ends up taking me just as long to complete!

 Nadia Lee Cohen’s Women is surreal, sad and sexy. By Ryan White. i-D , December 18,  2020.

 

Nadia Lee Cohen is only 29, but you’d be forgiven for thinking she’s a behemoth of image-making. One look at her debut book, Women, published by IDEA, and you’ll see why.

 
The fruit of six years’ labour, Women brings together 100 portraits of staggering power and beauty. Kept under wraps for the majority of that time, the project was carried out in secret, alongside her work as a director, and was completed in lockdown.
 
“The word ‘Women’ in this case is an idea related to ‘character’,” Cohen says of the title. “It doesn’t reside in the world we live in, nor does it share the same politics, beauty norms or values. It stands as a representation of strong femininity within a series of these 100 mise-en-scêne.”
 
The book sees Cohen capture people of all ages, shapes and sizes, in various states of undress. Each subject appears to be at total ease in front of the camera, unflinching and unapologetic in their femininity.
 
“Regardless of their assigned character, the level of nudity is determined by whatever the individual personally believes it is to feel ‘unclothed’,” the photographer says of the nudity in the book. “This naturally differs between subjects; however, it is, perhaps, the most harmonising thread that injects a universal feeling of strength to these images. The most important character trait being that these ‘Women’ are not weak, they feel empowered and, in turn, empower.”
 
Power is the key word here – these images vibrate with the stuff. They confront you. Command you. Compel you. Meet your gaze head on. And they are full of contradictions, too: simultaneously retro and modern, they draw on a legacy of British and American cinema, but feel new and current. Likewise they are staged and stylised, but at the same time real and irrefutably raw. Meanwhile, the women themselves display both a vulnerability and a strength, presenting a fictional character and also their true self, or at least a version of it. It’s hard to look away and even harder not to feel something.
A gold clothbound hardback, the book itself is a beautiful object in its own right, featuring a foreword by Ellen von Unwerth who praises Cohen’s talent for “skilfully interweaving the equally fascinating creepiness and glamour inherent of American culture”, and an introduction by Alessia Glaviano of Vogue Italia.
 
Here, Cohen discusses this project in further detail, expanding on the process of completing the book and the women at the centre of it.
 
Ted Stansfield: Please can you introduce this book?
 
Nadia Lee Cohen: You might have thought I’d had enough time to think of something a little more profound to say as a response … but here’s what I have: it’s my first photo book and it’s incredibly special to me. It’s a book of stories featuring people I admire in one way or another, each filling the role of an imagined fictional narrative.
 
TS: It is the result of more than six years of work. Can you tell me about the origins of the book, the process of putting it together, and how it feels to have completed it?
 
NLC: Honestly, it’s the largest sense of relief I’ve ever felt. I probably could have gone on for another 16 years but for a much-needed motivational intervention. I started it in university and had the unrealistic idea that I could complete it in a year. How wrong this was. My tastes changed both personally and as an image-maker. Also, taking on work as a director as a means to fund the book slowed down its progress. Though without sounding all doom and gloom, this element in particular I think aided the creation of the imagery, there was an elevation in terms of preconceived narrative, set design, lighting and general character creation. The concepts were more thoughtfully conceived like film stills rather than still images and I was no longer shooting in my mum and dad’s shed.
 
The main frustration was trying to complete the book while simultaneously attempting to keep each image secret. This proved pretty difficult, as people would ask ’how’s the book coming?’ and I was unable to show them anything I’d shot. In a world where we’re so used to instant recognition as a response to imagery, this lack of validation was slightly nerve wracking in terms of wondering if what I’d captured was worthy of a photo book.
 
The pandemic played a pretty considerable part in the book’s completion. Spending weeks inside forced me to face the daunting task of printing and arranging the images around my LA apartment like some sort of crime scene web. Pinning notes to them and obsessing about what needed to be altered, what was missing, have I used this wig too many times? Etc ...

 
TS: Despite the fact that the images were shot over multiple years and in multiple locations, there’s such a strong sense of cohesion to them. How did you achieve this?
 
NLC: Thank you. The stories are pretty similar in tone, although there are differing themes of mundanity, loss, elation, etc, there is a harmonious thread of strength I think that unites them.
 
TS: What is your relationship to these women? How did you cast them and what qualities do you think they share?
 
NLC: On a personal level, some are extremely close friends, others are people I have only met once with the intention of photographing them for the book; together they are all individuals that I admire in one way or another. On a fictional level I feel incredibly connected to their respective characters. The catalyst behind these imagined scenarios were the models themselves, in effect they were the initial spark and inspiration for the birth and progression of each character.

 
TS: There’s such a sense of intimacy to these images. A physical intimacy, yes, but an emotional one too. Is that fair? As a photographer, were you removed from your subjects or were (or are) you emotionally involved?
 
NLC: Emotionally involved in their fictional lives, yes. Even if the subject was a close friend, without risk of sounding like a low-budget ’medium’, there was perhaps a moment where we both disconnected and a new devised character entered the room and took their place. In certain cases after the wigs, make-up and costume design was complete we’d say shall we call them Shirley? Shall we call them Pam? When referring to this fictional creation staring back at us. The point is they weren’t playing themselves, I find when someone’s appearance is altered (at times) almost beyond recognition this brings out something that neither of you recognise in the photograph, even if you know each other very well, that seems to be where the magic is.
 
TS: Unlike a series of images of women by a male photographer, there is that sense of involvement, I think, and empathy in this book. What is your understanding of the female gaze and how is that expressed in this book?
 
NLC: It was a collaborative process in the sense that it was important for me to understand and empathise through each situation what the model felt comfortable with, then together we devised a way to work that into their respective character. I understand first-hand the vulnerability felt in posing, especially without the comfort and barrier of clothing, so there was a mutual awareness throughout.

 
TS: That sense of understanding and empathy is also illustrated in your decision to pose for the book yourself. Can you tell me about the thought process behind this decision and what you hoped to achieve by doing this?
 
NLC: It made the project more personal, had I chosen not to pose it might have made the overall tone feel more voyeuristic as though I was looking inwards at this world, rather than us all looking out.
 
TS: In the pantheon of female representation in art and photography, what do you hope this body of work stands for; what do you hope it achieves?
 
NLC: An intertwining of honesty and fiction. Something that people can relate to whether emotionally or physically. I’d like there to be some longevity in the project, imagery in the contemporary world currently feels quite disposable and transient. For me, a photo book surpasses this and lives with the viewer a little longer, and might be something they pick up and look at again in years to come.

 
TS: What do you hope this project expresses about the lived experience of women today? What issues does it raise or confront the viewer with?
 
NLC: It is of course fictional, which ultimately leaves it up to the viewer’s subjective interpretation. However, even if these scenarios are imagined, they are ultimately based on truth and real life, there’s nothing fantastical there. They stand as a representation of strong femininity however the individual feels to embody that idea, and this will probably confront each viewer in a different way.
 
TS: The book ends on a sombre note, with a portrait of Elie Che, who tragically died last September. Can you tell me the story behind this image, your memory of Elie and why it felt right to include and conclude with this photograph of her?
 
NLC: There wasn’t a sadness to this image before Elie’s death, she wanted to pose this way as this is how she felt the most beautiful. Though now for me it has a particular poignancy. Her death came as such a sudden shock, her close friends and family reached out to ask that her photograph was released early to honour her memory. The battle for trans people is ongoing, to end with her portrait felt important – it’s not to be thought of as a conclusive ending, more of an ongoing conversation to highlight the reality of this struggle for trans people.
 
Nadia Lee Cohen’s Powerful Portraits of Strong Femininity. By Ted Stansfield. Another, December 9, 2020.

Women by Nadia Lee Cohen.  Another, December 9, 2020

There’s a cautiousness to Nadia Lee Cohen. The photographer-filmmaker is mindful of her words, her associations, her 'brand'. And with 'cancelation' rife for successful creatives (and the executioner’s axe now as menial as a popular tweet), it’s only natural that hyper-consideration become par for the course. But there’s more to it with Cohen. It seems as though she doesn’t fear the fragility of her cultural clout, but that people might uncover she never had any to begin with.
 
Perhaps that’s the reason the LA-based-Brit sweats self-deprecation. Upon charting her career highlights -- which, for the record, include a National Portrait Gallery prize, a high fashion campaign starring Sophia Loren and a music video named among Rolling Stone’s favorites -- she responds by comparing herself to her contemporaries. When congratulated on her accomplishments (all by the age of 28, when most are only beginning to tackle credit card debt), Cohen counters, “Have I [done that much]?” While it may be in the Hollywood handbook that transplants exhibit imposter syndrome, Nadia Lee Cohen needn’t. Her work speaks for itself.
 
In fact, the only time Cohen isn’t careful is with her creative output. Upon completing her photography degree at the London College of Fashion, she relocated to California not to proximate to the world’s A-list, but to acclimatize to the distinct blend of glitz and grit unique to the state — both elements that distinguish Cohen’s style. Her visuals are low-brow and lush: swampy depictions of relatable scenes staged beyond recognition; hedonistic-hued portraits of the human condition that perspire debauchery, always alluding to all seven deadly sins with unwavering consistency. The result is somehow repulsive and compelling all at once — like a bad wax reproduction of Paris Hilton. And just like Paris, it’s all emphatically 'Made in America'.

 
Thus, instead of stargazing, the photographer’s fascination with Americana meant that her early days in LA were spent stalking the city streets at night to shoot without a permit, or taking long road trips with pit stops at gas stations and 99 cent stores to document the 'American Worker'. One particular expedition saw her enter a meth den and inexplicably kicked out of a moving car, after advertising for subjects on Craigslist -- a testament to the lengths she will go to spotlight unseen America, and it’s underbelly.
 
“I loved street casting,” she explains. “It was, 'Who can I get to shoot? That person looks interesting…' I was never really trying to seek out jobs in the entertainment industry, making music videos or shooting anyone famous.”
 
Citing Cindy Sherman and Gillian Wearing’s comfort in “comically distorting, or even in some cases altering, images to the point of the grotesque” as primary inspirations, Cohen soon transitioned into self-portraits -- transforming into various characters fashioned from the mementos she’d found on the road for one of her most well-known projects, the pointedly probing and monstrously camp, Name Tag.
 

“The idea was very personal to me as it was my perception of who these people were,” Cohen says. “I thought it would be more interesting to have one person interpret and physically embody these characters -- so I did it myself.”
 
Consequently, everyone knows Nadia Lee Cohen’s face and no one does. The photographer has taken many, many selfies, but she’s rarely without wigs or prosthetics. With a light scroll you can see her cosplay jailbirds, judges and nuns, her work splashed across top-tier publications. It grates Cohen’s modeling agency, Wilhelmina, that the photographer has very few images of her looking, well, normal, but she’s just never found natural headshots as “fun”.
 
“It’s really flattering when people want me in front of the camera, and it’s important to know what it feels like,” Cohen shares of modeling. “But I also think you have to be comfortable to show yourself, and doing those projects makes me feel more comfortable. Spending time in front of the camera also encourages me to be more sympathetic to subjects when I am behind it.”

 
With production at a standstill due to coronavirus, Cohen has had little choice but to become her own muse. It’s been frustrating to maintain audience engagement with increasingly personal photos, without flooding out her professional work from her feed. Then there’s the added pressure of her still untitled first book arriving later this year. It’s a compilation of images spanning the course of Cohen’s career, which mandates many of her archival photos go unpublished on social media or news outlets. This marks the first time the project has been officially announced (and some of the photos shared), and while originally slated for a summer release, it has been indefinitely pushed back due to the pandemic -- only limiting the photographer further in what she can share with fans.
 
“A lot of my friends complain about their work not getting as much attention as a selfie,” laughs Cohen. “I think people tend to feel more of a connection to the person from seeing a low resolution, iPhone image of them — it feels as though they are witnessing reality rather than something curated.”
 
Nevertheless, quarantine itself has treated the creative well. Despite only recently dipping her toes in filmmaking (the 'pig police' theme of A$AP Rocky’s “Babushka Boi,” directed by Cohen, recently recirculated on social media as a symbol for law enforcement ineptitude in the ongoing fight against police brutality) she’s been working on a feature concept for several years. FOMO-free due to mandated social distancing and weeding through years of ideas, Cohen’s script is fast-tracking. Still, a sidestep into the film industry was more "hope" than plan.

 
“When I first started making videos it was almost a test to prove to myself I could make my photographs move and it’d be enjoyable to watch,” she says, adding that she’s now shifted her process of conceptualizing projects from visual cues. “[Now] I’ve been thinking about the story in a narrative way, not a visual way. It feels unfamiliar, yet exciting.”
 
Right now, the battle is maintaining focus. Cohen knows too well Instagram can suck you into a vortex of color and self-comparison, and approaches the app with only the utmost trepidation. Nonetheless, her relationship with social media seems relatively healthy. In fact, she finds Instagram’s subtle inauthenticity "comforting" — a stark contrast to the well-documented anxiety most women experience interacting with the platform. To Cohen it’s a casting goldmine: if she requests a “man with a round, hard belly” for a subject, one will be procured through her direct messages in ten minutes flat. She also counts herself lucky that her followers are there for her work first -- whether or not it features the photographer in it.

Hence why she so deeply values her leagues of disciples. Subscribing to Nadia Lee Cohen’s universe is to embrace her perversely glamorous alternate reality, with triple-breasted women and satanic television personalities all in technicolor. She might cast a gaggle of middle-aged playmates to actualize the Valley Of The Dolls’ men-less utopia of her dreams (for the last ever winter issue of Playboy) one moment, and make out with Danny Trejo the next. As such, her professional fantasy is not necessarily the praise of Scorsese, but merely the industry’s price of admission: a full cinema, there just for her. When you extract the extraordinary from the American everyday, it’s the reaction of the ‘every man’ that means the most.

 “There's certainly people I admire and their opinion of my work would matter to me,” she concludes thoughtfully. “But I think I’d always imagine showing something to an audience… just a room full of people watching something I’ve made.”

 The world according to Nadia Lee Cohen. By Beatrice Hazlehurst. i-D, June 25, 2020

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