Gene’s comments:
I thought you all responded brilliantly to the article by Sarah Pink and the one about Matta Clark . Both Pink and Matta Clark are activists, though Pink’s activism (at least in this article) is much more one-on-one whereas Matta Clark is socially-politically engaged. Pink is seeking to gain an embodied understanding of the co-participant in her study, Matta Clark is trying to change the world. Nick, when discussing Pink, talks about Heidegger’s phenomenological directive to “be in with”, which is similar to Pink’s “walking with” in order to acquire an embodied understanding of the “other.” Such a process very different from merely observing, collecting data, interviewing and concluding as researchers usually do. The idea, as many of you well expressed, is to experience the life of another; this cannot be neatly categorized though we need categories to talk about experience. Art, maybe, allows us to overflow categorical thinking, to make all borders permeable, so that experience itself is felt rather than described. I like Shawn’s insistence that we “infuse the arts into all components of [my] research.” Shawn also emphasizes the cultural bias of the sensory categories we use, and I’m curious as to how his own project will address that.
Still, it is sobering in this context to remember that Heidegger and Beuys (mentioned in the Matta Clark article) were both Nazis. Who, exactly, were they “in with?” Beuys was young and arguably became transformed (though he never addressed his Nazi participation as far as I know). There own histories, however, emphasizes how difficult it is to really walk with someone whatever your theoretical stance. It maybe also emphasizes Pink’s emphasis on “embodied” knowing, through all the inseparable senses acting together, rather than merely intellectual comprehension. In this regard, Lisa Delpit, in her article “The Silent Dialog” writes that we do not see and hear through our eyes and ears but rather through our beliefs, which makes it both frightening and almost impossible to really be able to walk in the shoes of another. (From Amanda’s text it seems it may be difficult to even walk with oneself. )
. Anna, in her photo, is arguably not walking with her children. She is behind them, and how is that distance bridged by the look back of her daughter? Anna is (gently) traumatized by the idea that her children will go out on their own leaving her behind, her children looking back at her maybe just see a great adventure. Amanda writes about “interdependence in loss” and I wonder if that idea resonates with Anna. Meanwhile, Regina walks with the spirit of Kerouac today, but time and space and imagination still separate the two. How might visual and poetic approaches mediate that temporal-spatial distance.
Trauma seems central in many of the projects outlined. In Anna’s case it is still potential trauma that seems inevitable but also natural. But for Dora the trauma is embodied historically and it is dangerous. In the Latino culture, she posits, the oppressors and the oppressed walk together (Pink) literally. They can’t go anywhere without one another. This is normal, so normal that the trauma may not even be noticeable. And I wonder if we all to some degree carry within us the trauma of the oppressor, the trauma of hegemony, the double who we take for granted. Again the categories of oppressed and oppressor are not neatly divisible, they flow through each other. How might that be visibly conveyed?
Amanda’s trauma is both personal and cultural, and she needed to walk with herself “for miles,” not necessarily to make sense of it but to “emerge from submersion” (Freire) in order to recognize her situation and change it (Freire). (How could death by pancreatic cancer make sense?) Amanda includes stunning photos in her post and asks, “What if there were no good and no bad but just experience?” – a very Buddhist take on existence that sees death, in whatever variety, as fleeting and not distinct from life. Ee cummings wrote, “dying is fine)but Death
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Amanda’s photos made me think about the relationship between strength, fragility and compassion as we confront our inner oppressors and other conditions that seem cruel and meaningless. These are ideas I’ve been working with in some of my own work and I think they also resonate with all the work mentioned in these posts and with Shawn’s previous discussion about Obama.
Thoughts on process
Anna: I think the idea of including the voices of your children makes a lot of sense though I wonder how you will deal the danger of sentimentality, especially with your youngest child. You wrote insightfully about Pink’s writing, but part of the trick, I think, is understanding the multi-sensory quality of even a photograph without words attached. In your talks with your children, you might have them remember the feeling of that moment (the sounds, the textures, the weather, the smells) all evoked by the photograph. What does the photo evoke that it doesn’t literally show but depends on the viewers experience of a similar experience.
I’m still thiking about the idea of privilege that you bring up (makes me think of our discussion with Nick) but haven’t come to any clear ideas about it. I do think that some of the students I know in Newark look back with maybe a different sensory experience (and aspirations, and loss) then maybe your children do, some leave home much earlier, some are independent already when very young. It is interesting to think about the different cultural/econonomic/historical/geographical perspectives on children leaving to go out on their own both voluntarily and involuntarily
You could use your images in the ethnographic (and visual methods) the way Wendy Luttrrell does in Photovoice (you might want to look at her articles ahead of her visit), but you might also want to mess with the photos in some ways – we could talk about that in class on Wednesday. I wonder if there are stock photos or other photos that embrace the same theme and might be worth looking at. Or photos from other places and times. Or paintings? Or songs?
Dora
I’m intrigued by the activist tone of your text – making room for viewers to not only reflect but also to voice their own feelings. This could be very interesting, and maybe especially so if it was somehow tied to a performance where a large Latino/a population was present. Or an interactive exhibit of some type. Not only, of course are Latinos with the features you mention deemed prettier, more desirable etc (even often to themselves, bring up issues of hegemony), they are also more successful. How could you make this project participatory? Might your work elicit the trauma of oppression carried within?
I couldn’t make out the image you attached but look forward to looking at it in class together. Maybe you can find a better resolution of the same image?
Lisa
You mentioned combining video, pictures and drawings – are you thinking about doing so with the Advisor Center? A participatory action research project in which images are central? Or an installation a la Matta Clark? You didn’t talk about your project in this post.
Shawn
You don’t explicitly lay out a project, but you do mention creating outlets for marginalized groups to express themselves. I look forward to hearing how you might create or co-create such an outlet that uses visual methodologies or arts-based practices.
Amanda
I wondered to what you were connecting the sensory experience of death. Being interconnected and vibrant, it sounds alive reminding me a bit of Spinoza’s ideas. Of course even walking alone you were with the river and with your mother, even in her absence. The presence of her absence was palpable. What was it about the walking? The duration? The rhythm? How would images convey this. Would it need music or silence? Were you fragile as you walked or/and did walking fortify you? What is it you want to evoke? Those photos speak of strength and weakness and of so much love. But the subjects were older making death possibly less cruel. I’m curious to hear how the Van Gogh painting fits in.
I think of the images of LaToya Ruby Frazier, vulnerable and naked next to the steel mills yet staring out unashamed. Is that you felt walking with the river? Is it a struggle to make that experience neither good nor bad? Roots and struggle? You didn’t talk much about imagery.
Regina
“Political and provocative, tangible and meaningful;” I couldn’t think of a better combination! The idea of walking with Kerouac is crazy in a good way, I’m not sure how you would do that with your own photographs or collaging photographs from his time though I’m looking forward to hearing your ideas. Kerouac’s ON the road character was partly fictionalized, so you have that space to play around in, maybe imagining walks he didn’t actually take.
I’m not sure I understand addressing it to “real people” who are “Kerouac’s fellow young people who felt boxed in.” Are you addressing the project to real people in the past?
Maybe it might work to try to capture the freedom that Kerouac sought, the sense of not wanting to be boxed in. Kerouac, in his search for that freedom, carried plenty of his own devil inside, gleefully self-sabotaging himself and discarding others. Is that sense of freedom important today? Can we relate? Can you relate? How as a woman do you relish the freedom he used so often to demean women? Is that important? You quote Pink (quoting someone else I think) that words are ‘nearly empty of meaning,’ but you’re a poet and poetry is meaningful because it is metaphoric and musical, and that metaphorical music plus imagery might capture the freedom of Kerouac in ways that could be fascinating.
You might also think about taking excerpts from Kerouac’s work that are important to you and visualizing them.
Nick
The idea of analyzing children’s picture book sounds to me like more of a scholarly study than an artistic adventure. When you begin to talk about cutting and rearranging them in some way – that sounds more interesting though I can’t quite envision it yet or understand the conversation between the books. What stories could you create (visually and textually – and maybe musically) through that type of a method? Could you make an attempt with two picture books that are on your radar for this project? Of course you could make your own picture book. Maybe we can flush out the idea in class a bit.
Red lining is called redlining because they visually drew on city maps in red lines to map out the borders where nonwhites could or could not live. So it was visual. Now, redlining is not accepted practice, but of course segregation happens in less explicit ways and is justified in different ways. I love the idea of creating maps that focus on boundaries or barriers in a particular neighborhood. If I remember, I’ll bring in some books on maps of different types.
Lauren:
I’m curiously waiting for your post. I just recently happened upon an artist whose work is about migration. His website is http://fidenciofperez.com. Thought it might be worth looking at.
