Yefri Ventura is a London-based photographer, specialising in events, documentary, and black & white.
He captures intimate moments that tell stories; some may be joyful, some may be uncomfortable, but they are all worth telling.
‘The first time I was introduced to performance art, I was shocked.
‘A typical Friday like any other. Except, instead of being at the bar with my colleagues – unloading the stress and headaches of the working week – I was in Hackney, standing in a room full of odd art folk, preparing to photograph a band.
‘Now, when someone tells you that you are going to see a band, you expect the usual: singing, drumming, strumming, hooks, riffs, so on. But this was not that. I had never experienced this, before.
‘It made absolutely no sense at all. There was no structure. To me, all I saw was a bunch of people yelling, making random sounds with random “instruments”, and dancing in a way that could not have possibly been choreographed. However, as I looked around the room, everyone seemed engaged. I felt stupid for being the only one who could not comprehend what was happening. It was only later that I realised… I was experiencing a medium of a different and unique language: performance art.
‘To the everyday eye, it is easy to dismiss and conclude “weird people doing weird things”. However, the first performance is merely just a realm of question marks. It was only after two, three, four, and ultimately fifty, that I had found a new understanding for this form of expression.
‘It’s said, “you should never judge a book by its cover”. With performance art, it is best to just leave the book at home’.
