Ordinary Talkswith Rebekka Deubner
For our debut episode, we’re thrilled to welcome French-German photographer and founder of the publishing house Le Rayon Vert, Rebekka Deubner. Rebekka’s work, akin to that of a diarist, draws from a photographic tradition that associates the mundane with what she describes as "micro-events". She develops this very personal form of self-expression from her serene, white-walled Bagnolet flat, a place she associates with "her own mental space".
PAULINE MARIE MALIER
We invited you to bring us to a place that inspires you and holds a special place in your daily life. Could you share where we are and what makes this place meaningful to you?
REBEKKA DEUBNER
When I received the invitation, I immediately thought it would be nice to invite you to my home. I’ve been living in Bagnolet for a little over a year now. It’s truly become my new space and neighborhood, and I’m trying to experience it differently than I did when I lived in the 11th arrondissement of Paris. It’s quieter, more spacious, and very bright—although you can’t see that right now because it’s nighttime. I feel really good here. Just like in my previous apartment, it feels like I’m living inside a cube, almost like an extension of my mind. There’s a kind of reflection between what’s happening in my head and what takes place in my home. Since I needed to suggest a space that represents me in some way, this felt like the perfect choice.
P.M. M.
Has moving changed your perspective on architecture? Does the way you take photos here reflect the diversity of people and landscapes you encounter? Has leaving Paris influenced your practice?
R. D.
Moving has indeed shifted my perspective in subtle but meaningful ways. I’ve had several opportunities to capture portraits, both at home and in the surrounding neighborhood. My home, with its bright white walls, southern exposure, and nearly seven meters of windows, offers extraordinary light regardless of the weather. It’s a space that feels deeply personal yet neutral, making it ideal for photographing others.
In the neighborhood, I find myself drawn to the textures of the streets. The façades, gates, and especially the Parc des Guilands, with its open spaces and expansive lawns, inspire me. One memorable shoot involved photographing a woman while ensuring she remained unrecognizable. I positioned her in the distance, letting the lush lawn fill three-quarters of the frame. The resulting series reminded me of the park scenes in Blow-Up, evoking a similar ambiance.
I’m particularly drawn to environments that feel authentic—neither dirty nor overly manicured. There’s nothing artificial about them, and that resonates with me both for living and for creating. Compared to Paris, it’s less chaotic here, with fewer people and shops, providing a quieter and more contemplative backdrop for my work.
P.M. M.
If your work involves photographing people in their daily lives, moving to a new neighborhood inevitably influences your perspective—shaping both how you capture individuals and how you interact with them.
R. D.
Currently, I often find myself working on commissions, whether it's portraits for the press or artists. They don’t always arrive with specific requests, allowing me the freedom to explore my own creative impulses. My environment greatly inspires me in this regard. I enjoy inviting people into my space; it fosters a sense of familiarity, even with someone I don’t know well. My home becomes a kind of "playground" for experimentation. I haven’t taken many photos here yet, but I recently started capturing my partner while he brushes his teeth in this apartment. It’s a playful homage to a series I admire called Ruth on the Phone by Nigel Shafran, where he documented his wife over the years as she spoke on the phone. So, photographing Hervé in this moment feels like a lighthearted nod to that work. For now, it’s the only somewhat intimate or personal series I’ve begun at home.
P.M. M
Speaking of daily life, we’d love to explore your world as both a woman and an artist. How do you start your mornings?
R. D.
Since childhood, I’ve begun my day with breakfast—a habit ingrained in me from an early age. Growing up in Germany, breakfast held more significance than it does in France. In Munich, I would wake up alongside my brother and share breakfast with my mother, and that routine has stuck with me. He tends to skip it more often, but we’ve evolved somewhat differently despite starting out the same way. I find it difficult to begin my day without my coffee and toast to kickstart my morning.
P.M. M
It's interesting to maintain habits from another culture, like Germany, in your daily life. I understand the importance of breakfast there. Did you move to France at a young age?
R. D.
Yes, I came when I was 11.
P.M. M
Do you still hold on to some habits from Germany? How do they manifest in your personal life?
R. D.
If I had grown up in France, would I have a different approach to breakfast? Who knows? But I associate that breakfast routine with my childhood there.
German, too, although I rarely have the chance to speak it. I only use it with my father and sometimes with other family members, but not on a daily basis. I also speak it occasionally for work, though I don’t do much related to Germany yet. The lack of practice makes me feel often hindered in expressing myself; I struggle to find the right words, which can be quite frustrating.
P.M. M
It’s a pretty complex language when you don’t practice it.
R. D.
Yes, the structures are quite particular, and I’ve stopped developing my vocabulary beyond that of a child. Even though I continued to practice later on and spent a year studying in Berlin through the Erasmus program, which helped refresh my skills. Other than that, I’m not sure what else I’ve retained from Germany. I would say my interest in photography comes from my father, so in a way, that also ties back to Germany.
P.M. M
Yes, in one of the interviews I listened to, you mentioned finding old photos of your father, which inspired you to think about images from a different perspective and to reinterpret them. This makes me think about how the language you use is very conceptual, reflecting a way of thinking that differs from the French approach. I was wondering if this affects your creative process. Do you think in terms of concepts, or do you take a more general approach? How do your subjects come to you? You’ve worked on Japan and your mother—how do you begin to develop your ideas? Is it driven by a desire, a journey, or a particular moment?
R. D.
I’m reminded of a teacher who once pointed out that I didn’t have the typical French way of organizing my thoughts, especially in essays. This difference is a result of growing up in Germany and starting my education there.
I don’t consider myself very conceptual; my practice has been shaped by studying art history for three years after high school. I was trained in image analysis, learning to read and interpret forms, signs, and colors. This analytical approach to the visual still influences my work today, often without me realizing it. I feel there's a strong relationship between form and content in my photography. My style shifts based on the subject I’m exploring, as I strive to create a coherence between what I want to express and how I represent it visually.
It’s true that the projects I did in Japan are very different from those focused on my mother’s clothing. I recently started a project in Deux-Sèvres about water and territory, which will be quite different as well. I’ve also been working on male contraception for the past couple of years. Within this body of work, there are many sub-chapters, each expressed visually in distinct ways because they each approach the same topic from different angles. I think the key lies in how the concept translates into form. Ultimately, many themes recur from one project to another, such as the ideas of transmission, transformation, the evolving body, traces, and gestures as connections. There’s a kind of common ground underlying many of my projects, but they manifest differently each time, depending on whether they are more documentary or intimate, for example. That’s where I feel the essence lies.
As for how I decide to work on a particular subject, it varies from one project to another; some topics impose themselves on me. For instance, Strip, the project about my mother’s clothing, is deeply tied to a grieving process. It represents a step in how one appropriates the loss of someone. It was a need to be active in that loss.
P.M. M
We see you in this series, which isn’t the case in the others. Did you feel a specific need to personify yourself in this one?
R. D.
This is an autobiographical series that explores the idea of the body's trace and how the presence of the deceased continues through their loved ones. Since it's about my mother, it made sense for me to appear, as my body is an extension of hers. I went to Japan in 2014 because I wanted to work on the Fukushima Prefecture after the triple disaster of 2011. It was my first visit, and it was also the first time I felt capable of addressing a subject that seemed very distant from me. I ended up deeply engaged in this topic, and here I am ten years later, still involved. Many projects naturally lead to sequels—it's like a thread you can keep pulling on.
P.M. M
You must also feel the urge to return, to reconnect with the people you photographed and to see how their lives and situations have evolved. I imagine you’ve developed attachments to the people you’ve interviewed as well?
R. D.
It’s similar to my experience in Deux-Sèvres, where I went to Sainte-Soline as a protester rather than a photographer. There are always key moments: for Fukushima, it was March 2011 and the months that followed; for Sainte-Soline, it was the day of the protest itself. What interests me more is not that moment, which captures everyone’s attention, but what happens afterward—what remains as a trace and testimony of that day. Why did it happen in Sainte-Soline? How does it fit into the broader history of that place and territory? My approach is meaningful because it focuses on the aftermath and revisits it. I struggle to envision doing relevant work without fully understanding the context.
P.M. M
It’s essential to truly grasp the stakes involved—both in terms of the territory and the people—so that you can create a body of work that feels thorough and insightful.
R. D.
I’m not sure we can really call it understanding; perhaps it’s more about a kind of intimacy that helps me establish reference points. I don’t pretend to fully understand the territory of Fukushima Prefecture, but I do have intuitions and glimpses of what’s happening there. In any case, having that intimacy with the space and the people I meet is crucial.
P.M. M
Do you think it’s still possible to experience boredom in today’s world? With social media and all the noise surrounding us, can we truly be bored? You mentioned earlier that you enjoy being here because there’s nothing happening in the street. So, do you ever manage to feel bored, and do you think boredom still exists?
R. D.
I believe we can still get bored, but you have to seek it out a bit, you know? It really depends on your age and where you are in life. I can only speak for myself, but I think those moments of boredom have to be self-generated. They don’t just pop up like when I was a kid; I used to complain, "I’m so bored!" That doesn’t really happen to me anymore. Sometimes time feels like it’s dragging, but it’s not quite the same. Maybe I experience boredom when I’m on vacation and decide to unplug.
P.M. M
Is this an interesting time for you creatively?
R. D.
I try to disconnect. I don’t do it very often throughout the year, so I’ve kept the habit of taking long vacations in the summer—about a month and a half or two months of real downtime. Those are the moments where boredom could happen, but honestly, not that much.
P.M. M
We hardly ever truly get bored anymore.
R. D.
Exactly. It feels more like we need to consciously create moments where we’re not caught up in information, interactions, or work. We’re missing those empty spaces.
P.M. M
Especially when your work is your passion and vice versa—there’s no clear boundary anymore. Do you still find moments when you’re not thinking about photography? You have your artistic projects and your commissioned work. Can you still take a step back from it all? Do you think about it every day? Are there times when you just don’t feel like taking photos?
R. D.
I don’t take many pictures in my everyday life. I usually shoot only to build a body of work or an ongoing series. Right now, that’s happening in Deux-Sèvres, not when I’m in Paris. It’s about male contraception, so those are dedicated times when I meet people. In my daily life, I actually take very few photos, as many photographers would agree: you need to create images, but there’s also a lot that goes into working with that material—reviewing it, editing it, printing it. I think all of that takes more time than the actual shooting itself. For me, it takes at least as much time. So there’s always an engagement with photography, but it’s often more about everything that comes after than about taking pictures.
P.M. M
I realize we’ve asked some tricky questions, and the next one is about how to capture the ordinary in photography.
R. D.
I’m not sure how to express the ordinary in photography. For me, photography is meaningful because it allows me—and I know many other photographers feel the same way—to be attentive and contemplative about what’s happening in front of us. It’s an excuse to really look at things. So, my connection to the ordinary comes from that. I’m generally not interested in the extraordinary in my images, even if the subjects can be extraordinary; the images themselves don’t necessarily reflect that.
P.M. M
You mentioned the idea of the non-event, right?
R. D.
Yes, for me, that’s where it all happens. In the most normal and everyday moments.
P.M. M
You take very close-up photos that truly capture the texture of the people and things you see. That definitely makes sense in that light.
R. D.
What I find moving about photography is taking the time to really look, to observe, and to pay attention to what’s in front of me, whether it’s a person or a place. That connection is what I find interesting and touching. That’s part of why I do photography.
P.M. M
Is there a book you could read hundreds of times?
R. D.
I don’t think I have a book that I’ve read multiple times.
P.M. M
So you’re not someone who revisits and rereads things?
R. D.
I’ve rewatched a lot of films, but not books. If I had to choose a book I could reread, it would be "The Man Who Planted Trees" by Jean Giono, because it’s very optimistic. It’s uplifting, and I think it’s important right now to read or watch comforting things to balance out the heaviness. But it’s not my go-to bedtime book. If I had to think of something I might reread, it would be that. I also read a lot of Marguerite Duras at one point, but I wasn’t focused on just one book; I was more interested in the author herself. I wanted to explore as much of her work as I could, diving into her obsessions through her novels, plays, and screenplays. What fascinated me was how someone can express a fixation or an obsession. I feel like that’s something I’m increasingly doing in my own work. But I got into Duras after finishing high school.
It’s about exploring the same idea through various mediums, different ways of looking at different subjects centered around a common theme. It’s like cultivating a fertile ground that we shape into many forms, all stemming from the same material. That’s what came to mind when I read the question.
P.M. M
We wanted to delve into the concept of obsession. For me, it’s Harry Potter - not the most intellectual choice! - but I’ve read countless times, while other books or films I couldn’t even finish. It made me wonder what I was truly seeking. It felt like I needed to reconnect with the characters, to grow alongside them—even though they never aged. What fascinates me is how many people share this kind of obsessive repetition. Watching films and series has become an integral part of our daily lives, though, sadly, we read less these days. But the obsession is undeniable. Does that resonate with you? Do you see yourself as an obsessive person?
R. D.
Um... yeah, I think I have some obsessive tendencies (laughters). I definitely have that with Japan, for example. Even though I haven’t been there in a while due to COVID and everything. I hope to go back either at the end of this year or next year.
P.M. M
I feel like Japan makes a lot of people obsessed.
R. D.
Absolutely, I feel the same way.
P.M. M
Maybe it’s because it’s such a captivating and unique culture that you want to dive deeper every time you visit.
R. D.
Exactly, and there are elements you can only find there—the forms, the colors, the patterns. Tokyo is such an incredible place. What I love is discovering new things, but also revisiting the little cafés or bars I’ve stumbled upon. It’s about discovery but also reconnecting with those little snippets of daily life I’ve created there. And continuing to pull on the thread of the work I’m doing. The projects build on each other and gradually complement one another with each trip. Between travels, it’s something I keep nurturing. From 2014 to 2019, I really fed that with films, books, music, and Japanese photography. It was a way to keep traveling while being in France, staying in that flow despite the distance.
P.M. M
Returning there with a fresh and sharper perspective than before... I wanted to ask you: when you travel for a long time, do you find yourself looking for bits of daily life in new places? Did you do that in Japan? Did you try to go to the same café every morning? Did you mainly stay in Tokyo? How were your travels there?
R. D.
I’ve been to Japan four times, always in Tokyo. I ended up finding places I really liked, often with people I met there. Then I traveled to Fukushima Prefecture, visiting many different towns where I didn’t establish any routines, as they were more like stopovers. However, I returned to certain places, like a beach I photographed a lot in 2014 and 2019, and I’d love to go back to capture it in a different way—either this year or next. So yes, I have some little habits, but they’re minor compared to the excitement of discovering new things and the sense of being in a completely different place.
P.M. M
We often look for a piece of everyday life when we’re far from home.
R. D.
I think it helps ground you. Otherwise, I can feel very lost, especially when I’m far away and don’t understand the language. Without close friends around me, it’s harder to connect with where I am and who I am. I can easily disconnect from myself, so having those small routines helps me re-establish that connection and makes things feel more solid and less uncertain.
P.M. M
You were asked to choose an object that’s dear to your heart or part of your daily life. Can you tell us about it? What did you choose? Can you describe it and its significance?
R. D.
I hesitated; I thought about two rings, but I’ll focus on one. It’s a ring my grandmother gave me the summer after I graduated high school. I was just over 18, and it was her gift to mark my transition into adulthood, even though looking back, I realize I wasn’t quite there yet.
P.M. M
You haven’t lost it, at least...
R. D.
I haven’t lost it, but it’s a miracle because there was one time it fell into the sea, and I thought, well, that’s it. There were small waves, and it was deep, so I figured it was at least a beautiful place to lose a ring—in the ocean. It took me a few minutes to find it; I scraped through the sand and finally felt a little bump—it was the ring! And it’s also disappeared twice on dance floors at clubs, but I always found it by the end of the night. But it always finds its way back to my finger. It’s a ring with three interlocking bands—interdependent. The three rings are in white gold, rose gold, and yellow gold, and it’s worn on my pinky. It’s a bit big, which is why it sometimes slips off.
P.M. M
Do you have one hand that’s thicker than the other? Maybe you’re meant to pay special attention to this ring.
R. D.
I used to have another ring on top of it from my paternal grandmother. But it got a little damaged; it helped secure the ring, but I took it off recently. For now, it’s just the ring, and it reminds me of my grandmother.
P.M. M
You wear it every day; is it a physical anchor in your life? How do you see this object? Do you wear it all the time?
R. D.
Yes, I wear it all the time; it’s the only thing that never leaves me, even when I shower or sleep. When I look at it, I see my grandmother’s hand. She also gave one to my cousin, so there’s this connection on my hand to other women in my family. It’s also a tactile anchor because I spend a lot of time rolling it with my thumb. So when it’s not there—rare as that is—it bothers me because I can’t do my little thumb habit.
P.M. M
You talked a lot about anchors during the interview, so I wanted to ask, to wrap things up, why do you use that particular word, and how do you define it? How does it fit into your life and practice?
R. D.
Yes, I’ve built my life around strong anchors—both familial and geographical—that represent joy and connection. I think of a family home in the south of France, near Carcassonne, where I’ve been going every summer since I was born. I spend anywhere from a few days to two or three weeks there. My mother hasn’t missed a summer in that house her entire life, and it’s one of the key anchors in our lives. These places are always changing; generations shift—grandparents pass away, and new children arrive. It’s a container for all the life that unfolds—the house, the place. Everything is constantly evolving, even if it sometimes feels fixed. So those anchors are there, but they shift a lot, and I think photography is a way to capture that. I’ve been taking photos there for about ten years, which allows me to document life as it passes. There’s a sense of urgency that has emerged in recent years with aging family members, allowing me to photograph them there before they’re gone. That’s the role photography plays—it creates visual anchors or a kind of visual memory.
That’s why we’re so attached to family albums. I think as we get older, we hit that point where things change, and people start to disappear, which makes photography feel even more significant, maybe even more than ever.
P.M. M
It really resonates with us. Thank you for having us in your home; it was a lovely conversation, and I truly enjoyed it.
