Barbara Debeuckelaere
Dallas in Romania

Barbara Debeuckelaere is at home in many fields. In a previous life, she studied economics and international law and worked as a journalist for public broadcasting. A few years ago, she exchanged camera and pen for the camera. Her sights nevertheless remain fixed on the world. After all, in her work, the big social stories are never far away. Witness the photo series, with which — if all goes well — she will graduate in a month. 

ONRUST
If I understand correctly, it all started in Dallas. 

BARBARA DEBEUCKELAERE
It started with Dallas, the television series. 

ONRUST
That was a while ago! Back when televisions weren't flat. 

BARBARA DEBEUCKELAERE
Right. The series ran from 1978 to 1991. So that spans the entire 1980s. I was a kid then and hung out in front of the tube with my parents for more than one episode. Of course, at the time I had no idea what kind of pivotal period the world was actually going through and exactly how it took shape in Dallas. 

ONRUST
Your adult self may explain in this one. 

BARBARA DEBEUCKELAERE
Thank you. Well, the 1980s were quite a bleak time, with a huge economic crisis and skyrocketing unemployment . The neo-liberalism of Reagan and Thatcher reigned supreme. At the same time, scientists were beginning to worry seriously about the climate, though their reports were mostly disregarded by policymakers and oil companies. Dallas summed up that zeitgeist perfectly. 

ONRUST
I have only a vague image of it. Cowboy hats and shiny skyscrapers in a brownish décor…

BARBARA DEBEUCKELAERE
Everything revolves around the Ewings, a Texas family that has made fortunes in oil and cattle ranching and is fighting a feud with the rival Barnes family. Iconic is the Southfork Ranch, the family mansion where all the Ewings live together. Oil was still a sexy product; women had to be especially beautiful and docile. In other words, the ultra-conservative American South. However, their adventures did not exactly bear witness to much Christian morality: murder, betrayal, sex, intrigue... Especially the evil machinations of J.R. held the public spellbound at the time. He was pre-eminently the guy you love to hate. An asshole, enfin. 

ONRUST
Sounds like the usual ingredients for a soap? 

BARBARA DEBEUCKELAERE
Maybe so now, but the cultural impact of Dallas is hard to overestimate. The whole world was under its spell. As a prime time soap opera, the series set the standard. Besides, it was the first time a significant segment of men watched it. With the current overflow of fiction, it's hard to imagine, but in the U.S. alone, no less than 83 million people simultaneously watched the conclusion to the episode Who Shot J.R.? Everyone was talking about it. It was on the cover of Time, News Week and so on. And yes, it was also a topic of conversation on the playground in Flanders. 

ONRUST
And? Now who was it that shot J.R.? 

BARBARA DEBEUCKELAERE
Look, you're already hooked. Dallas was known for its cliffhangers. The concept already existed, of course, but in Southfork Ranch the screenwriters pushed the limits of it tot he fullest. Sometimes the storyline touched on the absurd. At one point the character Bobby dies and only a full season later it turns out it was all just a dream of his wife. 'Did you sleep well, honey,' he asks deadpan, when she finds him in the shower. I remember feeling betrayed as a youngster then. 

ONRUST
Speaking of plot twists, how did you get from Dallas to photographic work? 

BARBARA DEBEUCKELAERE
Initially I wanted to travel to Texas to take portraits in the so-called ‘man camps’ of the oil industry. But during my research I suddenly stumbled upon a new angle. Dallas turned out to be very popular in Romania as well. A millionaire even had a replica of the Ewing mansion built there. Remarkable, because the Americans tend to copy everything. The Romanian gives them a taste of their own medicine. 

ONRUST
Dallas in Romania, of all places. Wasn't that country under the shadow of an authoritarian communist regime in the 1980s? 

BARBARA DEBEUCKELAERE
Indeed, that's precisely what makes it so special. Nicolae Ceaușescu was the strong man there and kept the state media strictly in line. Yet he allowed Dallas, as the only Western series. He felt it showed capitalism at its worst. Not entirely unjustified actually. Only, it didn't turn out that way. For a lot of Romanians, it just opened up a view of the West. From that world of glitter and broad shoulder pads they purified hopes and dreams. 

ONRUST
So you went to Romania? 

BARBARA DEBEUCKELAERE
Yes, I went to talk to several people there. Everyone responds enthusiastically when they talk about Dallas. It gave people joy and hope. We are now thirty years later and the question is whether things are getting better. Romania is still going through a difficult period. The replica mansion was once a hotel, but today it stands empty. 

ONRUST
Do you see that in your photos? 

BARBARA DEBEUCKELAERE
Well, I used the Internet to find people who felt and feel connected to Dallas and started photographing them in a Dallas setting, all costumed and with the requisite glitz and glamour. Also the handful of people still working at the Dallas Hotel. It was blissful. Everyone got to help choose what they wore and how they wanted to stage it. It was a game and a welcome distraction for many who are struggling today. Just by integrating those two worlds into one image you create a tension. These Romanians are playing themselves and a character at the same time. The images are at that intersection of reality and fiction and past and present. Sometimes such a luxury version of someone in a décor that just cannot live up to the illusion of wealth has something strange, something pop-like. I accentuated this artificial character with cinematic light. 

ONRUST
You didn't stick to portraits, I believe. 

BARBARA DEBEUCKELAERE
No, I also traveled through the country and took pictures along the way. Did you know that Romania is an oil country? Or rather, it was. Today, not much of it remains. A lot of wells were bombed during World War II. Anyway, Romania is a beautiful country with impressive nature. Of course, I also visited Ceaușescu's palace, also his personal cinema. Like other dictators, he really loved movies. 

ONRUST
And he really loved staging reality himself…

BARBARA DEBEUCKELAERE
One of the women I portrayed subtitled Dallas. She worked for the state broadcaster and knew what was allowed in it and what wasn't. Swimming pools, for example, were out of the question, nevertheless a capitalist symbol, but Ceaușescu had one himself and he didn't want the link to be made. By the way, the book is conceived as a cinematic story. It begins with a scene in which J.R. cheats on his friends, then the images follow, and it ends with a text that provides interpretation, especially for those under forty and perhaps less familiar with the series. Oh, and there is also a wrapper around the book, which is a movie poster. On the back then are all the interviews with the "actors. Here they talk about their lives, then and now, and why Dallas was so important to them. So the book works on multiple layers. 

ONRUST
For your graduation exhibition and MAP (master project) in the Glazen Gang, you have to translate to a museum setting. How are you doing this? 

BARBARA DEBEUCKELAERE
I want to make the link between film and photography by working with oblong frames and dividing them into different parts with wooden slats. Each time you get to see a compilation of three or four fragments: a still, a portrait, a pastel color, sometimes some scanned-in Dallas merchandising... They are not really collages, I call them rather montages. Of elements that interact each time. It's a bit of a deconstruction, a breaking up into fragments that I then neatly glue back together in frames. For my MAP I also used a bronze mirror. You saw those a lot in the interiors of the 1980s, but it also symbolizes the mirror effect of psychology if you will. I was often told by those portrayed that they learned about their own country in part by watching Dallas. 

ONRUST
Curious to see what that will look like. Can I end with a cliffhanger? 

BARBARA DEBEUCKELAERE
Go ahead. 

ONRUST
Will Dallas once again achieve high ratings? Will Barbara Debeuckelaere wave goodbye as master of photography at KASK & Conservatorium? You'll find out all about it at the graduation exhibition from July 1 to 4!