Marta Soul on the Interplay Between Reality and Fiction

It’s really exciting to hear about your contribution to 209 Women, can you give us some insight into your creative process behind your photograph of MP Gill Furniss?

At first I thought about taking a picture that depicted Gill’s life, her background and her passion for Sheffield. For instance, her father was a steel worker and she seems to be passionate about the steel industry. I realised that although this idea could be a good representation of Gill, it would not disclose much about myself. Instead, I thought about what Gill and I had in common and had the idea of using people as the link between us.

I usually create images of people showing different roles of themselves. I love producing scenes and situations in the interplay between reality and fiction. Gill Furniss is a female politician, very engaged with others concerns. She works to protect consumers, and this is something affecting all of us.

I ended up using different characters as the background for the portrait. The initial idea was to place Gill into a crowd; the problem with this was how to define a crowd and decide what characters could best represent it. It’s not possible to represent all types of people within one picture, so I decided to include friends, relatives and people close to Gill and I; people that one could meet on a normal day in Sheffield. This made things so much easier!

You must be proud to be part of such a powerful project! Is it important to you that your work brings attention to wider topics such as gender equality?

I consider 209 women an important project with a legitimate cause. It shows the actual volume of female photographers currently working in the UK, as well as the importance of female politicians. Being from Spain, the first thing I thought when I received the proposal, was to export the idea to my country’s reality.  Although I have never seen my work as a gender-equality centred one, this is a topic that has always concerned me at a personal level. There are many aspects of my work that reference the stereotypes of femininity and masculinity, adopting a sarcastic approach.

On the other hand, all my works are shown from the perspective of a female photographer, so it is important for me that this is considered in a positive way – as added value rather than a differentiating aspect. Things are changing in a positive way and perspectives are now broader. Those with a biased view of photography are moving forward, pushed by social movements defending gender equality. 209 Women is a brilliant project that has been able to show the importance of photography created by women in the United Kingdom.

I also take part in #nosinfotografas, an activist group in Spain. This is a platform aimed to tackle cases of gender inequality observed in the field of photography.  As a photographer, I think that it is important to get involved in these types of initiatives.