Framed: Sandrine Lopez

“‘You have to photograph the soul of Brussels,’ someone wrote to me. I love the word ‘soul’ and, when I think of it, I see red, I see blood, I think alive, and I imagine what is inside it and what makes it live. An interplay of outer and inner, the invisible and the flesh. In a train taking me back to Brussels, I draw the curtains. The light shines through the red fabric. Stopped at Noordstation/Gare du Nord, I find myself alone in the train car. I photograph the shaft of light and the answer to following my instructions comes to me. Red. If the souls of cities have a colour, it’s red. Black would certainly have been an option, but for Brussels, it would be red, definitely red.”