10 July 2009

Dom Agius is a master of many trades. He is a photographer, a writer and a music maker with a distinctive language constructed of amorous images, immaculate words and haunting sounds which he uses opulently. Exceptionally polite, handsome, delightful and charming, Agius is one of the few people who still sounds like a gentleman even when using the word “fuck”. If you ever meet him, you certainly might fall in love.

PP. If there is one image that for me encapsulates your many talents, I believe it must be “Sit in the corner until you’re told” from 2006. Perfectly still, yet dancing with movement. It could be a set for a fairytale beginning with ”once upon a time…”

DA. …in a land far, far away… I took this on a sweltering July afternoon in a deserted gentlemen’s club in Aldgate, London. I was photographing century-old manuscripts for a history book and turned round to a momentary breeze and the curtains rose. A moment captured in a bell jar. The artists I love and admire have always been the most eloquent of storytellers. From Cecil Beaton to Roberto Foddai, the most incredible images always seduce and charm and make you want return again and again. For me it’s all in the story.

PP. And you certainly know how to tell stories in your photographs, music and writing. Where do you find the time? Do you ever sleep?

DA. Don’t. I have a woefully overactive and too easily distracted mind that allows me five or so hours a night. Once you’re awake there’s no point lying there procrastinating. There are only so many hours in any day to let all this out. I have a fleeting, reoccurring dream about falling asleep on sofa after a weekend lunch. I can’t ever recall it actually happening, but it is a sweet dream nonetheless. Too much to do.

PP. You were born in the UK but spent a significant part of your childhood in Africa. Why?

DA. My father is a civil engineer, a man of bridges and highways if not many spoken words. I am the eldest of five kids and, with our mother, we followed him to Tanzania in East Africa in the summer of 1980. They were both younger than I am now, with four children under 13. It was a huge, possibly insane leap of faith and bravery on their part but one we five will always thank them for. The first time that plane door opens and you are hit in the chest by the heat and the smell. Africa just buzzes and ingrains and transforms and just seduces – that word again! They say you can never shake the Catholic faith which, as a still occasionally holy-ish Roman, I would have to agree with, but the pull of Africa is possibly even greater.

Do you know the work of the incredible Italian photographer Mirella Ricciardi? Her grainy, black and white shots of the Kenyan Masai were one of the most formative influences on my teenage “eye”. I didn’t realise quite how much until I rediscovered her work a year ago and was almost embarrassed at subconsciously how much of her there is in my work.

PP. No, I really don’t know Mirella Ricciardi’s work, but now I do, thank you. Your family is very important to you and you keep very strong links with each other, not often the case in English families. Does Catholicism play an important part in this? Are you religious?

DA. Are we close because of Catholicism? Now, there’s the $60,000 question. Growing up apart – returning to boarding school in the UK and then having these condensed periods of no-fucking-about happiness together – is what made us close. We none of us had time for petty grievances or jealousies. Also, my mother is a tough but fair woman and doesn’t suffer fools, not least her own children.

But Catholicism? Again it’s ingrained. I always nod politely, smilingly envy and quietly disbelieve those who say they’ve managed to eradicate it from their lives. I’m not the first homosexual Catholic and I’m sure God knows I won’t be the last, he knows everything apparently. I do attend Westminster cathedral occasionally – not least because it’s one of the most spellbinding places in London just to sit and think and be, but “lapsed” is such a beige term. While I may not agree with all of the Church’s teachings or be in anyway proud of its history of abuse, I am in favour of rules. Without strictures or guidelines the mind stultifies and rots. We all need something to fight back at, to rail against. If we can do anything, we too many of us too often end up doing nothing at all.

PP. Now that you mention the word “homosexual,” let’s talk about that, shall we? When did you become conscious of your sexuality?

DA. How very polite of you. Do, let’s. I was reading William Golding’s Lord of the Flies aged 11. The fair-haired and even-natured Ralph goes skinny-dipping in a desert island pool within the first few pages. Even just the written description of a sun-kissed boy swimming naked caused the first ever Agius stirrings. Respect to Piggy, that brute Jack and all the other troubled boys, but the rest of the book was always going to be a letdown after that. I have suddenly realised how often sun, water and men feature in my shots. No need for Mr. Freud today, apparently.

PP. Sun, water and men. Anything else you wish to add to that?

DA. Sadness. Or at the very least a certain pensive candour. For me it’s always the shots you take when someone thinks the camera is off or the session is finished that are the pearls. The lense can draw out the bullish exhibitionist, or the unexpected wallflower in the most unlikely subjects. It’s tricking them into being themselves I strive for. Public places hold a fascination, too. All this learned behaviour, how to cross your legs if you’re a man or a woman. When one can look directly at someone, when one can’t. The politics of politeness and propriety fascinate. When a beautiful woman or man walks down the street and leaves a trail of horny, angry, disgruntled, jealous cricked necks in their wake. Maybe I’ve lived too long in London…

PP. It seems to me that you always have your camera with you. Have you been taking photographs for a long time? When did you start, why?

DA. You sound surprised. Surely a photographer should carry a camera at all times? I recall reading that Cartier Bresson only ever put down his camera when shaving, considering each step outside his front door a safari, the public his wild animals, his prey and wanting to yell in recognition! I guess if one’s work is about constructing elaborate tableaux then it’s not such a priority and that is something I’m beginning to explore, especially in self portraits — acting, directing, projecting – but I am still too fascinated in the surreality and absurdity that surrounds us all to ever take a chance on missing that shot.

When I first got my camera in the summer of 2003 I didn’t let it go for the first three months. It drove Mick quietly mad! It has, without doubt, been one of the three great love affairs of my life. Both my grandfathers, Rupert Pontifex & Edward Agius lived with their cameras always to-hand, although only Edward perhaps considered himself a photographer. If there is one thing that has always united both sides of our family is this almost slavish need to commemorate and chronicle and remember. I love the power of the word, especially written but photographs will always carry their own unique resonance. I bought my camera from the £500 Edward left me when he died. A legacy if you will.

PP. And what a wonderful legacy it is, in addition to your exquisite talent, grace, and politeness – not seen often these days – which now I am certain you inherited as well from Rupert and Edward. You mention one more important name here, that of Mick. He plays a significant part in your life, does he?

DA. The fellow Mick. Not sure he would recognise the graceful, polite person you just described but yes. Where to start? He is what Quentin Crisp would have called my “Tall. Dark. Man”. We met nearly 18 years ago. A stubborn, loyal, funny fucker, muse, handsomest best mate, fond of tattoos, nearly died six years ago, my musical and photographic collaborator and benchmark. I trust his ear and eye implicitly. I could go on but it really wouldn’t be very British. He is The Love of my Life.

PP. It is not surprising that Mick is often in your photographs. With one of those you won last year the GlaxoSmithKline’s HIV: Positive about the Future photo competition. The title of the work is To Be In England With The One I Love.

DA. This was one of the first shots I ever took – Wandsworth Station, London, a Saturday afternoon in the late summer of 2003. I’ve always been a bit wary of competitions but five years down the line I was politely cajoled by my friend Matthew Hodson who works for the GMFA to enter, not least since the £5000 award would go to the charity of one’s choice and he campaigns tirelessly for HIV and AIDS education. This shot seemed the obvious choice. Mick and I discovered he was positive a month after we met in the January of 1992. In the first five years we were together we lost too many friends to AIDS-related illnesses and, in an era preceding triple combinations, we never dared imagine we would see our 10th anniversary together let alone our 16th, 17th… This photo sums up for me an optimism and tough romanticism that I never thought we’d have the luxury of sharing.

PP. There is another link between Mick and you, Furiku. What, who is Furiku?

DA. Furiku is Mick, myself and our friend, singer and genius co-writer Aruan Duval. Mick and I have written and recorded songs for over 16 years, released a string of twisted disco 12” vinyls and remixes under the name Sugarpussy from the late 1990′s but in 2005 wanted to take what we’d learnt from dance music and reapply it to our first love – pop. We gave Aruan an electro punk instrumental and two days later he came back with Go! Go!, recorded his one-take vocal in our rooftop kitchen overlooking London, mixed it and instantly realised we had something very special.

The name Furiku is Japanese slang for Freak and we just had this amused, if slightly arch, idea that we’d write music for gorgeous Tokyo teenage girl Goths who were bored of being depressed and just wanted to dance. Have a couple of hits in Japan, do an advert for chewing gum a la Lost In Translation, bingo! I genuinely believe Aruan is one of the great white soul singers of our generation. Think Bryan Ferry with a dash of Depeche’s Dave Gahan. Everything we write with him, from chunky rock to sparse electronic torch songs through collaborations with people like our hero Mick Karn of Japan, they all have this dark velvet warmth. He’s a peerless designer to boot . My shots, with his minimal chic layouts, Mick’s videos, I always call it a creative trimocracy. You’re rather fond of our Billie Holiday Jamadelic video aren’t you?

PP. I am indeed, you could call me a fan as well if you wish. What are you working currently on?

DA. A fan Lady Windermere? We are most honoured then! Over the last year we’ve worked on two, maybe three theme tunes for possible film projects, all quite epic, layered cinematic pieces. So as a way to refresh ourselves we are working on a quick sexy 3-track pop E.P. All tight, punchy, club and radio friendly songs. Really we’re just three overgrown teenagers that should know far, far better.

PP. What makes you excited?

DA. Ha! What doesn’t! Do you seriously want to open that box?

PP. Yes, go for it!

DA. Ok so, watching people who are watching people, words, Nick Rhodes from Duran Duran, reflections in shop windows – mine and others, accidental haikus, talking shit, Woolf & Wilde, changing records to a room full of sweaty boys and girls of all ages, wondering whether Will Champion from Coldplay would be a great kisser, you, Kristen Scott Thomas’ eternal insouciance, the footsteps at the beginning of West End Girls, growling Harrison Ford in Bladerunner, accents – I Love accents and hands too – hunting for the most perfect bass line of all time, hearing my friends laughing next door while I am pouring drinks, reveling in laden silences, the much missed gamine bliss of Paula Yates, the sentence after next, the smile on Paul Rutherford’s face whenever he danced with Frankie, thick necks/low centres of gravity. Gruffness, more new words, dancing with my beautiful brothers and sisters, making Mick laugh, That moment of eternal hope after the shutter clicks. Enough?

PP. No. What makes Mick laugh?

DA. My god you’re insatiable! Mick laugh? He smilingly rues the insanity of someone as private as him being married to a gadabout like me.

PP. Ok, what makes you laugh?

DA. Not jokes. Love. Art. Music. Everything I wake up to most days. My glass is large and nearly always overflowing.

Text: © Predrag Pajdic
Images: © Dom Agius