CÉDRIC VIAENE:
ANOTHER WAY

JULY 20, 2026

A conversation on movement, photography, strangers and finding home in unexpected places.

Cédric Viaene is a Belgian photographer working between fashion, documentary and travel. Occasionally appearing in front of the camera himself, his photographs are shaped as much by intuition as by image-making.

We met in Ibiza last summer while photographing COLLECTION 0, where Cédric appeared in the campaign. Nearly a year later we sat down in Paris, shortly after he returned from three months in Brazil.

Over the past decade, travel gradually became a way of understanding people—and how life can look very different depending on where you stand.

Jakob: One thing we often return to is how much of life is inherited. Systems. Expectations. Ways of living that people never really choose for themselves. They simply grow into them. You grow up somewhere and naturally assume that reality only looks one way.

Cédric: I think that's it. If you’re only exposed to one mentality, you’re very limited. You don’t know more than what’s there. You grow up in one place, one culture, one environment, and naturally you think that’s how life works.

Then you travel somewhere else and suddenly people live completely differently. They value different things. They’re happy in another reality. You realise that maybe nothing is as fixed as you thought.

J: So maybe all it takes is seeing how other people live?

C: I believe when I was younger I was much more materialistic. Watches, cars, all these things got a lot of my attention. Somebody always had something newer or better. You think those things define success because that's the world you're surrounded by.

For example, you see kids in places like Indonesia or the Philippines who spend their days climbing rocks, playing in rivers and finding joy in things that don’t cost anything. You start questioning what matters.

Nicolas: Most people want certainty before they move. They want to know exactly where something is leading.

C: I was always the opposite. I think the best way to find out is simply to try. People can tell you things. Society tells you all sorts of things. But people need to experience things themselves. Often they tell you to do something and the exact opposite turns out to be the right move.

I left for Australia with very little money. I worked knocking on doors for charities. You knock on a hundred doors, ninety people tell you to fuck off, maybe one person invites you inside. You learn very quickly that rejection doesn’t matter. You become comfortable speaking to strangers. After a while, being uncomfortable just becomes normal.

Those experiences shaped me much more than anything I studied.

J: Then certainty isn’t for you.

C: No. I think it’s overrated.

Brazil comes up all the time because everything felt right. That’s really the only way I can explain it. The people, the situations, the places. Everything somehow connected.

You can’t know for sure every time you do something. You don’t know whether somebody is the right person. You don’t know whether a place is right. You don’t know whether you’re making the right decision. At some point it becomes intuition.

J: Do you think your intuition improved?

C: Definitely. You trust yourself more. You understand people better. After a while you realise that nobody really knows what they’re doing. Everybody is improvising.

J: You always try to get beneath the surface of the places you visit.

C: That’s the entire reason I travel. What’s the point of going somewhere and looking for things you can get at home? You can fly twelve hours and still live exactly the same life. The same cafés. The same apartments. The same people. The same food.

Everything becomes designed for visitors. I want to understand how people actually live.

Brazil was probably the strongest example of that. I learned Portuguese because nobody around me spoke English. Suddenly you aren’t observing anymore. You become part of their life.

Even people from Rio would tell me not to go to the places I was going. Taxi drivers would hear the names of neighbourhoods and tell me not to go there.

Inside the favela there are rules. There is respect. There is community. People often imagine these places through violence, but what I experienced was something very different.

J: What you’re really responding to is authenticity?

C: Completely. People are very real. If they don’t like you, they make it obvious. If they like you, they make it obvious too. There isn’t this constant performance.

Three days before I left they organised a party for me. Everybody came. Even today I still speak to many of those people.

One of my closest friends there is Mauro. I met him on the beach. I had my camera with me, but honestly I didn’t feel like taking it out, like another gringo bothering them. But I ended up photographing him. Then I photographed his friends.

They wanted to see the pictures and I had to explain that it was film. That the photographs would come later. And somehow that became the beginning of everything.

Eventually he invited me into Cidade de Deus. I asked him if it was safe. He said, “With me it’s fine.” At some point you either trust people or you don’t. So I went.

He introduced me to everybody. We rode motorcycles through the neighbourhood. I saw things I never expected to see. Some of the craziest experiences of my life happened there.

J: Was there ever a moment where you thought, maybe this wasn’t a good idea?

C: Honestly, never.

The danger often exists outside the community. The tourist areas, like Ipanema or Copacabana. The places where nobody knows you. Inside there are rules. People protect their home. These people were incredibly generous to me.

J: Film seems to fit the way you see the world.

C: I think so. I never started shooting film because I thought it was cool. I simply liked the results. I liked the uncertainty.

You don’t know exactly what you’re going to get. The film still has to travel. The heat affects it. Airport scanners affect it. Time affects it. Everything leaves a trace.

Digital photography can become very controlled. Film leaves room for chance.

J: Life is unpredictable. Film is too. That’s why I love it. It feels real.

C: Yeah. With digital you can shoot one thousand photographs. With film you become more selective. You wait. You think. You commit. The image still has to reveal itself.

Sometimes I wish I shot more digital because life would become easier. Clients want images immediately. A week ago I shot Zara and they wanted pictures the next day.

But I always return to film.

N: Have you had major failures?

C: Two dead Contax cameras.

One died because of salt water in Rio. Millions of people on the beach during New Year's Day. A wave came in and the camera was finished.

Nobody could fix it.

You move on.

J: You’ve spent the last decade moving around. Has routine ever been possible?

C: I’ve never really had a schedule, everything’s been constantly changing.

Sometimes I struggle with that. Sometimes I probably need more structure. Sport is the one constant. If I don’t move for too long I go crazy. Motorcycles. Training. Running. Surfing.

In the end, I think movement became the routine.

N: Has there ever been a time where you lost that momentum?

C: Yes, for sure.

But I’ve never really felt trapped. I’ve always done what I wanted to do. I’ve always relied on myself. Nobody makes the decisions for you.

There have been periods where nothing clicked. I’d pick up the camera but it just wasn’t there. Sometimes it feels like you’re starting from zero again.

Then you go somewhere new. You meet people. You have a conversation. You make one image that reminds you why you started. Slowly it comes back.

J: Maybe that’s why certain places stay with you. Not because of the place itself, but because of who you are the moment you’re there.

C: Yeah. Every place leaves something behind. Sometimes you arrive somewhere and everything just happens. The people, the timing, the conversations.

That’s what I keep coming back for. I put myself in situations where something might happen. You can’t really plan it.

N: Ibiza feels like another contradiction. In the past it’s been this place where people came looking for freedom, art, music, nature and another way of living. But now it also represents something very superficial. Status, access, being seen.

Yet we still keep returning because there is something real underneath all of that.

C: I ended up there because of work. I met a friend who lived there. A few days became more than a month. Because I knew people who actually lived there I experienced a completely different island. The north. Hidden beaches. People playing drums. Places tourists never see.

There’s still something magical about it. At the same time it’s become very commercial. Very superficial in some ways. But there are still these moments. I went to a party recently. No phones. Musicians. Artists. It was created because somebody’s love for music and bringing people together. Those things still exist.

J: Our experience is similar. The people who stay there often left another life behind for something new. A restaurant. A farm. Music. A club. Yoga. Whatever it is. They decided to go there and build another version of life. And that’s probably what creates the energy.

C: Exactly. People told me years ago that Ibiza either takes you in or throws you out. And I believe that.

J: So what are you looking for now?

C: I think I just want to continue. I’d love to spend more time in Africa. More of Latin America. There are still so many interesting places I haven’t seen. And with work I want to move more into video and directing. Photography can only tell you so much. Video allows you to go deeper.

Anthony Bourdain honestly had the dream job. Travelling. Eating. Meeting people. Listening. Understanding places. That idea really appeals to me.

J: That’s what it's been about from the beginning, chasing perspective?

C: Yeah. I don’t think what stayed with me were the places themselves. Not even the photographs. It’s the understanding that there is always another way.

Another way to live. Another way to work. Another way to make images. Another way to understand people.

And once you’ve seen that, it’s difficult to go back to believing that there’s only one way.

FEATURING: CÉDRIC VIAENE
TEXT AND PHOTOGRAPHY: JAKOB FRÖDIN
PRODUCTION: NICOLAS SPIERS