Antoine D'Agata is a French photographer and film director and a full member of Magnum Photos. His photographic subjects have mostly been those on the fringes of society and his work deals with topics often considered taboo, such as addiction, sex, personal obsessions, darkness, and prostitution.Born in Marseilles in 1961, Antoine left France in his early 20s and remained overseas for the next ten years. Finding himself in New York in 1990, he pursued an interest in photography by taking courses at the International Center of Photography, where his teachers included Larry Clark and Nan Goldin. During his time in New York, Antoine worked as an intern in the editorial department of Magnum Photos, but after his return to France in 1993, he took a four-year break from photography. His first books of photographs, De Mala Muerte, and Mala Noche, were published in 1998, and the following year Galerie Vu began distributing his work. In 2001, he published Hometown and won the Niépce Prize for young photographers. He continued to publish regularly: Vortex and Insomnia appeared in 2003, accompanying his exhibition 1001 Nuits, which opened in Paris in September; Stigma was published in 2004, and Manifeste in 2005.Since 2005 Antoine d’Agata has had no settled place of residence but has worked around the world. He is currently based in Paris. In episode 201, Antoine discusses, among other things:Wanting to become a priest at 15SacrificeMoving to LondonSituationismHis intro to photography before he took picturesBeing accepted into the ICP as a ’social experiment’Being ‘ashamed’ of having left the streetCritics not having the full factsMoments of ParoxsysmThe question for morality and ethicsQuitting photography for 4-5 yearsCambodia, his book Ice, Crystal Meth and the consequences of using itHow he manages to endure the banality of the real worldContaminationHis Covid project with a heat sensitive cameraHis commitment to and passion for teaching workshops Referenced:Luc DelahayeMoises Saman Instagram“I didn’t want to betray in any way what I was or what I was doing, so I needed to find different ways to keep going without negating what I believed in, and photography seemed to be the only considerable way to do it…” VOTE HERE FOR ALETHEIA CASEY TO HAVE A SOLO SHOW AT PARIS PHOTO!!Become a full tier 1 member here to access exclusive additional subscriber-only content and the full archive of previous episodes for £5 per month.For the tier 2 archive-only membership, to access the full library of past episodes for £3 per month, go here.Subscribe to my weekly newsletter here for everything A Small Voice related and much more besides.Follow me on Instagram here.Build Yourself a Squarespace Website video course here.