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Victoria Conway: What led you to the medium of photography specifically?

Nina Tanujaya: At first, it was just archiving my family vacations. The camera would get passed to me because I wanted to do it, even when I was little. 

It started to turn into something I wanted to do more seriously during COVID. It was the only thing that would get me out of the house sometimes. After that, it started to feel like something I wanted to share. It was becoming something more cohesive, and I was sharing it with my friends and family. I also admired a lot of photographers, and I liked the idea of a project that was more directed rather than just some stuff I took on my own. 

That’s when I started to think about going to photo school, so I moved to New York to do that. It was a really intense year, and it was a lot of my formal training in shooting film. I got there without much technical foundation, so I was trying to build that up. A lot of my stuff ended up looking different, and there were a lot of different aesthetics. 

The final deliverable was a portfolio-slash-project that told a story. I did the Creative Practices program, not photojournalism, so it didn’t need to be about something outside of me. I had started out the year knowing I wanted to take any photo that was related to being Asian American. By the end of the year I was looking at everything I had made and trying to make sense of it, because it was thematically connected but there wasn’t really “a story.” 

I brought it together by making a zine, and it just felt really good. I gave it to my friends and family, I got to put it on the ICP [International Center for Photography] library shelf for a short amount of time, and it felt like a nice offering that brought together the things I had been circling for the whole year.

VC: Did you study anything related to photography or art before ICP, or was ICP your first introduction to a formal study practice?

NT: I did a year of black-and-white photography when I was at Bard [College], but I was studying sociology and Asian studies, so I didn’t have the time to double-major because that was already a joint major. If I had known I was going to get into photography, I probably would’ve taken more classes because it’s such a good program. But I wasn’t ready for [critique], and I didn’t want to hear what other people thought. I was just happy that my print came out good. It wasn’t the right time, but then I started doing it on my own, and then ICP was the bigger step.

VC: Your body of work Pulang explores the memory of home. What is unique to your perspective on that, and how do you see that reflected in your project?

NT: I’ve been making Pulang since 2022, and it’s changed along the way. It started really home-focused, trying to tie together where I was from and what in my life made me feel anchored and proud of that. I have a lot of white friends in San Francisco because I went to private school, and then I came here [to New York] with a purpose of trying to surround myself with a different kind of community. It started with trying to depict the things that made me feel connected and at home, especially because I had just moved here and it didn’t feel like home yet. Since then, it’s turned into learning how to let go of home. It steered more towards aging and loss and childhood memories because I started shooting more of my parents at home in San Francisco, and every time I went home there, my house would look a little different. 

Going home is emotional. It’s hard, and I didn’t really know what to do with it, so I just started taking pictures of it. It’s still hard, so I’m doing it because that’s my way of making sense of it.

VC: It sounds like, for you, shooting is a form of emotional processing. Was that something that you knew going into it, or is that something that’s emerged as you’ve developed your craft?

NT: It emerged. Recently, there’s been a lot more lifting up of the Asian community, but not when I was growing up. So, I was just trying to put my identity out there and be proud about it and make something beautiful. But that was really outward-facing. 

The more I thought about it, I realized I was doing it because I had a lot of feelings about seeing my parents age, and seeing my home change, and San Francisco broadly—everything changing really quickly. My favorite childhood spots are gone. My whole neighborhood is really different now. 

The Sunset was really Cantonese when I was growing up and didn’t have anything going on, and now it’s a very different type of person [that lives there]. Every time I went back, I was sad. I was just like, This is horrible. I wish it wasn’t changing. I like how it used to be. But, I can’t do anything about that.

VC: A lot of your work explores themes of memory, family history, belonging—generally, a contemplation of culture. How do your background and your cultural influences inform the creative process itself?

NT: I have a lot of Indonesian motifs [in my work], a lot of batik that I use as a backdrop, or I have my family wear it. We also share a lot of batik among my sister and my cousins, so sometimes as we rotate clothes I like to photograph us in each other’s clothes. Especially with my Indonesian side, my connection to it is a lot more limited. I don’t have a very big Indonesian community. My community is my family. So food and clothing is the way that I connect with it here, other than seeing my family in Indonesia. I felt like I had to bring that in because I was trying to talk about my family. 

That goes for my dad’s side of my family, my Chinese side, as well. Even though he doesn’t give himself credit for it, my dad really forged a new way for me and my sister. We were raised differently from how he was raised and differently from how it would have been if he didn’t move to San Francisco, so I’m trying to find a way to bring that forward in my work. 

VC: How has the thematic focus of your work and its explorative process impacted you as a person, with regard to your self-concept in relation to the world or in relation to your family?

NT: It’s sometimes hard to communicate with my dad, and I think at times when he sees my photos, he can feel the emotion. I try to say it to him as well, but it goes over his head. So, through my work, I try to give him a depiction of himself or our family through my eyes and hope that he can feel it that way. 

My family always has a really emotional response to my work. I think they’re able to understand more about how I’m feeling about our family and how things are changing. I get really caught up in the emotions sometimes, so I can’t say it super eloquently as it’s happening. When I’m at home, I’m just kind of sad and uncomfortable. Photography is a way to turn it into something that other people can appreciate and understand. 

VC: I’m curious how you make sense of your position within something greater. You’re speaking about how the Sunset was quite culturally distinct when you were growing up, and how that’s changed as the make-up of the community has changed. What message would you like your work to communicate to that end?

NT: When the gentrification first started ramping up, I was really resistant to it, especially because it started happening when I was still living at home, when I was in high school. I obviously can’t do a thing about it, and all I can do is accept it and appreciate whatever remnants are left. But it’s important that [my work] is grounded in the Sunset and in San Francisco.

I’m still trying to weave this part in, but there was a strip of Ocean Beach in San Francisco called Playland at the Beach, and it got torn down, and they built residential buildings and now there’s a Safeway, and it’s been like that ever since I’ve known it. When I realized that even my version of what I’m attached to had replaced someone else’s, I read an article about how people’s childhood experiences were torn to the ground, those rollercoasters and whatever. 

Through my work, I’m trying to understand that it’s not just me having a hard time seeing change. It’s happened so many times before, and we just have to learn how to live with it. 

VC: What is the interplay between project and process in your work? 

NT: I think my approach is consistent over different bodies of work. I’ve retitled Pulang into Sisa Masa, which means “what’s left in time.” I asked my mom to give me some ideas [laughs]. But originally I had Pulang and Rumah as two different projects, one being the body of work I made here [in New York] that was more about creating a sense of home, and the other one was more focused on my childhood home and my childhood experiences. It was two sides of the same coin: home here and home over there. And the aesthetics obviously overlapped a lot. 

The idea came from thinking about how I would best present my work, if I want to get it out there, if I want a grant or a residency or to exhibit it. I want to be able to present my best work, and it’s easiest to do that from a single body of work. So, I brought them together, and I feel like it’s much better. The sequences that I can put out there are a lot stronger. 

Since ICP, I’ve learned how to think about the concept before going into the work. Before, I was just taking pictures of my family when we were having meals or walking around the neighborhood, and I wasn’t as intentionally trying to make something. But after ICP, I realized it could be a lot stronger if you start with the concept and you have an idea of the way you want it to look or the different types of shots. 

I would say my still lifes are pretty consistent. They’re always on batik or something Chinese or Indonesian, and it’s generally a bunch of precious things of mine or my family’s. But, it differs. Sometimes I’m just in the moment, and sometimes I’m planning out a thing with my family. 

My husband is also a really important part of my process. He has a family history of photographers. His grandpa ran a massive lab in Brazil, and then once digital came in, it kind of fell apart. The lab changed hands to a different family member that didn’t prioritize modernizing it, and then it sort of disappeared. But, we’re both the keepers of the family archive and the person that’s making work about family. There’s some other photographers in his family, but he’s the one that’s most interested in his grandpa’s work and making something now that has some connection to it. He also helps me with everything; he’s my assistant and creative collaborator and weighs in on every sequence. I feel really lucky that my life partner is also a creative partner.

VC: You mentioned that your still lifes depict precious objects, and so they serve as a mirror in a way. You also make a lot of portraits. How is the relationship between self and other depicted in your work?

NT: In the first iteration of Pulang, I featured more friends and looser relationships. Then I narrowed it in, and now, it’s just my family because that’s where the core of the project is. I’ve included some photos that weren’t of me, but people thought they were of me. Which is, maybe on the one hand, racist. On the other hand, I realized that I could use my family as a double or mirror of myself. 

I would like to include more self-portraits, but I’m better at being behind the camera. Sometimes I try, and it just looks really stilted. Having my family serve as a representation of me brings me into the work without me having to physically be in the frame.

VC: You mentioned that your family reacts very emotionally to your work. Would you describe your family as engaged in the arts, or is it a new thing you’ve embarked on that they’re now getting to know?

NT: My mom is engaged in arts history and loves museums and has a deep appreciation for beautiful things. But, in terms of understanding photography, it came from the fact that I’m in it. Sometimes, now, my mom and sister make comments like, “The light is beautiful,” or “It’s so soft,” and it’s like—that was me. I like that they understand what goes into it. 

And actually, my grandfather is a photographer that never got to be a photographer. He has so many photo albums, and he’s kept everything he’s ever made, but he never got to put it out there, even though it’s completely stunning. He was working as a chef and making a living for the family when they first moved here in 1964, which was a tough time. 

In that way, there is a thread. No one else in the family engages with my grandpa in that way. For me, it’s less about showing him my work and more about giving him the chance to show me his, even though I’ve seen it so many times. I just don’t think he had anyone to appreciate it in the same way. Everyone knows that it’s beautiful, but nobody was making their own work and understanding what went behind it. 

A lot of the earlier photographs in Pulang were shot in his house. We also have a language barrier—I speak broken Cantonese that only goes so far. So, showing up with a camera and looking through his photos creates a little bit of a bridge where we don’t really have one otherwise. 

VC: That’s so special. Like you’re saying, it’s a language in and of itself, even if there is a literal language barrier that makes it hard to have a formal dialogue. The process of sharing work and sharing space creates an emotional dialogue. 

NT: Definitely. I once did an edit of diptychs of his work and mine, which felt really good. Our work is completely different, but I intentionally shot certain things to look like his because I knew he would like it, and it ended up being a photo I really liked. He mainly shoots nature, like flowers and trees, but it’s really inventive. There was a time when I was at ICP where the thing I was shooting that week was photos that looked like Grandpa’s flowers.

VC: How did you discover your own aesthetic?

NT: Making my still lifes was the first time I found something that felt really like me. I’m not saying it’s not out there in another way, but it felt unique. It also reminded me of when I was little—I used to make arrangements with my toys. I wasn’t even really playing with them; I was just building little homes for them and making them look cute and putting them on the window sill or something. So, it kind of felt like the adult, photo version of that, and it was an opportunity to bring in that playfulness.

Read the full interview in Issue 7 of The Dilettante.