https://i-d.vice.com/en_us/article/pj-harvey-and-seamus-murphy-share-a-moving-document-of-conflict-around-the-worldIn the film shown at the festival, you include still and moving images. Why both?The discipline that you need to shoot still pictures is so different. The great thing, and the terrible thing, is you have a choice of media. It's a bit of a mindfuck! It was a busy time, flicking that switch from still to moving.
You shoot things not thinking of the end product, because there is no end product until you sit down and start editing it. We were both there — Polly writing notes, which could become a song or a poem; me photographing and filming — and that's reason enough to record. Whether to use it, or whether it's any good: you have no idea [in the moment].
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How were you as travel companions?We were exchanging together. It's like any writer I've worked with — they do their note-taking and some interviews. The only difference is that Polly hadn't been a journalist, so it was all new to her, to go out and talk to people in that way: about war in Afghanistan, or people with family members killed in Anacostia. As a journalist, I suppose you learn how to distance yourself in some ways, and you know what you're after. You have an idea of dealing with people and getting what you want out of them — in the nicest possible way. In the evenings, we would talk about that, like, was it OK for her to ask a certain type of question? She never stepped over any lines, but when a person starts crying you start thinking "Is that because of me?" And I think it was the first time she had traveled in that way — without a manager, or a band, or an itinerary, or in good hotels. And she loved it.
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"The Hollow of the Hand" is on view at Église Saint-Blaise at Rencontres d'Arles, France [as a video] through September 25.https://twitter.com/TharoorAssoc/status/752450306873683994https://twitter.com/TharoorAssoc/status/751785361077075968