By: Azad Karimi
A visual knowledge can help to understand d a situation, in this case a photo is useful to illustrate what you want to explain…..is it an answer to your question?
Interview
French Press Photographer Edith Maubec
By Azad Karimi
A few months after the regime change in Iran in February 1979, the war in Kurdistan began.
Iranian (Kurds and non-Kurds) had hot felt heroic about the sudden change of regime. Of course, this feeling was accompanied by pride and arrogance among non-Kurds.
I was 5 years and remember some events.
In July 1979, Tehran issued an order to invade Kurdistan and a bloody war began for three months. The brains of Iranian poor young people were brainwashed with ideological slogans.
They came to fight with the view that Kurdistan should be cleansed of infidels and thus frighten the big countries.
O great God! ... and how great and valuable human beings were killed on both sides. And the blood of all of them has been shed by the order of the governments of Tehran.
Tehran closed the roads to Kurdistan. No one in the world knew about the situation in Kurdistan. And I survived to tell this to my friends around the world tonight. Forty-one years later.
At that hellish time, Edith and Paul Maubec, French journalists under pseudonyms, came to Kurdistan to report the turbulent situation in Iranian Kurdistan to the world.
Paul Maubec chose the name Chris Kutschera.
Twenty years later I read a book by "Le Mouvement national kurde" Flammarion by Chris Kutschera.
Thirty-four years later, I published the book "Borsoen Prison" in Iraqi Kurdistan, using a photo of Chris Kutschera on the back cover.
In April 2013, I met Edith and Paul Maubec or Chris Kutschera at the Sheraton Erbil International Hotel and I presented my book to them.
That day was one of the best in my life and our very deep friendship started from that day and so our collaboration began...
Edith and Paul are our family friends. They were close to my mother and my mother loves that noble couple very much. Edith and Paul have done a great cultural service to the Kurdish people and the land of Kurdistan.
Unfortunately, Paul died in the summer of 2017. But the kind and great Edith has continued and will continue. And I'm very proud to work with her and their cultural institution.
I ask God to grant health and longevity to Edith and to relieve Paul's pure soul in heaven.
My mother asked Edith to send her a souvenir portrait, and she sent this beautiful photo of herself to my mother. I share this beautiful souvenir with all my friends in across the world.
Thank you!
Vestland-Norway
1- Please present yourself (Name, education, job, Civil status and...)
. Edith Maubec, master’s degree in economy, Press photographer published under the pseudonym Chris Kutschera, French citizenship
2-what is your artistic specialize?
. None, I am not an artist
3- When and how did you become interested in this field of art?
. If as a press photographer you think I am an artist, I don’t think it is the right qualification. A press photographer is a journalist; I have the French press card as photographer but we don’t say press photographers are artists. We document the world with our photos, we have a vision and little by little we acquire a style.
I start to be interested by photos when I was young in the 50’s. When I was 13, I was sent to England during summer in an English family to practice English and my parents gave me my 1st camera and I did my first reportage: my summer holidays in England.
4- Who was your motivator?
. May be my father; he was a doctor of medicine but he was travelling for his pleasure and he was taking photos. I loved to see the pictures he took during his holidays. I think it was my first motivation.
5- What was your parent’s reaction?
. No problem, they offered me my 1st camera but at that time, I did not think I could become in the future a professional photographer
6- When started you such as a professional artist, photographer?
. I started to publish some photos in travel magazine in 1968. I was not any more interested by my profession as an economist.
7- Are you thankful and happy because of your activities as a photographer?
. Yes, I like to do something useful and to report with my photos on countries. I like to take photos and travel and by chance as a photographer I do both activities.
8- How you see the view, the future of art, photography, culture? You are an artist; you should have an opinion...
. Big question but I am not an expert. What I realize is how to be a press photographer, our profession changes a lot. Everybody can take good photos now with a mobile for example but it does not mean you are an artist. Technically the photo is good but it’s not enough.
9- How does culture use photography? What do they have to do with each other?
. Sorry I don’t understand your question. What do you call culture! Education, knowledge?
A visual knowledge can help to understand d a situation, in this case a photo is useful to illustrate what you want to explain…..is it an answer to your question?
10- Can you become one part of the artistic-cultural movement for motivation in youth or new generation in your country and so than?
. No because I don’t consider myself as an artist. But I know some young people who were dreaming when they saw my working with my husband as a photographer.
Some of them told me later they chose to be professional photographers like me.
Edith
