Quarantine Conversations: Susan Meiselas and Richard Kalvar

The ongoing COVID-19 crisis has resulted in most Magnum photographers being restricted in their movements.

As part of a broader photographer-led response, the series Quarantine Conversations sees Magnum photographers in frank and unedited dialogues about work, current affairs, and everything in-between. This conversation is part of a second round of pairings, selected by lottery by Bieke Depoorter, which reversed the pool of interviewers and interviewees from the first round.

Here, Susan Meiselas speaks to Richard Kalvar about his inspirations, debuts in photography, being an American in Paris, acting, the “unconventional photography” newspaper project, and the importance of personal work.

This video series forms part of a broader, photographer-led initiative to document the crisis. Regular curations of these new images feature in our series, Diary of a Pandemic. See the latest chapter here. You can also keep abreast of new work on Magnum Photos’ Instagram in the form of both Instagram Stories takeovers and daily image updates.

Watch all of the Quarantine Conversations here.