The following is NOT an artists’s statement. It is a compilation of ideas that I have chosen to express because I believe they provide motivational force to my photographic pursuits. A fairly general artist statement is what I will distill out of this crazy hodgepodge of words. In any case, the statement that I finally crafted out of the stuff that follows is not specific to any one project, but is instead a general sensibility that informs my imagination.
There are three broad ideas that lately have animated my imagination when it comes to photography (well, the third one has been around for quite some time):
1) Thresholds/Liminal Moments: Liminal moments are often marked by ambiguity, indeterminacy, and change. They are intersectional moments (or spaces) that can open new ways of looking at things for those present. The intersectionality of those moments makes for instability of meaning: these are the moments where meaning opens up, where the incongruity of particular meanings and associations are called into question, and their arbitrariness revealed. These moments don’t have to be physical/material, but of course we experience those moments always situated (unless in your dreams and then… well, then you might want to go to sleep with a compact camera just in case). As per Victor Turner, and also Arnold Van Gennep, rites of passage in culture are liminal moments. The idea is that rites of passage effect a transformation on the participant (e.g., move from childhood to adulthood, from boy to man, girl to woman, etc.), they change social status, and thus meaning.
Perhaps the most classic type of images that purport to reference liminality are those that through some means show us, or seems to imply, a beyond, a different plane of existence, or at least a transformation of our normal experience. But the liminal does not have to be visualized in such ways at all, and neither is it experienced in such movie/book cliche ways always (I add the always at the end of that sentence because culture does shape how we tend to “see” the liminal by providing a stock of cultural visual cues). We are open to the liminal, but more so if we look deeply at the interplay of how we construct meaning, at those spaces, moments, experiences, that most challenge received notions, or where various “taken-for-granted(s)” come into contact.
I think much of the power of the liminal to fascinate people lies with its tantalizing promise. The promise of… Some of that always remains unknown, but it includes the promise of difference, of a new order of meaning, of awakening to something new and exciting, of change that fulfills. Of course, we fear such moments precisely for their unknown quality, but we are always in love with the promise of, and it is that moment that tickles our desire with “the-promise-of” that can be so powerful, that we might find in everyday spaces and moments, disclosing new worlds of meaning.
2) Interconnection/Interbeing: There are moments of flow in which we suddenly become aware of the unity of all things. Those are peak moments. They are fleeting at best, but leave us elated. I’ve often tried to make sense of those moments, but it is like holding a fish: the more we squeeze, the more they slip out of our grasp.
However, there are other moments that, although not “peak” moments in the same way, also leave you enthused. Those are far more quotidian moments of “grace” (and I don’t mean religiously). I’m talking about those moments in which for a little bit various things come together to help us realize how precious everything is in its fragility, simplicity, and in its “everydayness.” In my terms: how everything is interconnected. Those are precarious moments. They are full of a sense of fragility, the wispy-ness and tenderness of the evanescent moment. I’d like to experience those moments more and more. Sometimes such moments are bittersweet, but they fill me with hope. They last longer, and are more frequent, than those other “peak experience” moments that I noted above — and guess what? they are not the unalloyed happy-happy joy-joy (Viva Ren & Stimpy!) moments of enlightenment that we’ve been told about in pop transpersonal psychology. These moments might activate compassion, but compassion also comes with recognition of suffering. I think it would be great to capture that feeling photographically. I know it would be fantastic to offer it to those who view my photographs.
I believe that I have to remain open to the moment, to what’s going on around me, without trying too hard to fit everything into little boxes, if I want to remain receptive to the worlds I encounter. I also think that the compassion that is nurtured from those moments is a fruit of being mindful. For that to happen, I have to get out of my own way… so that I can look deeply and whatever beauty, poignancy, and challenges I see… offer to others.
3) Re-Storying: Believe it or not there is a body of scholarship on re-storying. Funny eh? For a word that seems so straightforward there exists a whole body of knowledge complicating it. But never fear, for I will re-story some of that right here. Re-story often refers to how we can engage in a process of re-telling the story of our lives. Think about it as a process of composing and recomposing that story. In various areas, such as work with the elderly, and with victims of abuse, re-storying has therapeutic value.
Re-storying for me indicates our attempt to take the symbolic elements/resources of a particular story at our disposal and re-fashion the narrative from them. It means taking a story and retelling it from a different perspective or point of view. For me that is part and parcel of social documentary work. We know that multiple stories can be told about an event. We all see somewhat differently, shape our stories in diverse ways, and bring to bear our experiences when crafting the tale. But how might we purposefully engage in a process whereby we carefully seek out the elements of a story and try to rework it so that it can, in its new telling, empower those who are left powerless, silent, victimized by the original story? How might we enter a community and jointly work at retelling a story from the voice of a downtrodden person? This for me is fundamental for social documentary and reportage, and does take more skill than one may at first think.
I make no bones about the fact that photography as re-storying is an activist pursuit also. It entails a commitment to working toward a specific ideological agenda, namely raising awareness re social justice and social change. Such agendas are not devoid of art, and art is not free from such entanglements. I want my work to open spaces for the refiguration of assumptions, to dislodge tired thinking, to create perspective by incongruity (K. Burke). For me, documentary, and street work are precisely about causing such reconfigurations in the minds of viewers. If you want academic language: this work is about re-emplotment, and about cultural interpretation.