J. Sybylla Smith, In Conversation with Mark Alice Durant
Episode #19 Summary:
Mark Alice Durant orchestrates a sweeping compendium of images and text in a dynamic exploration of the states a human body experiences, from the terrifying to the sublime.
Episode Notes
Durant invites us into a fluid free fall with his intentionally sequenced interplay of history, ideas and first-hand knowledge in text and image. Incubating his idea of how still images capture physical, emotional, social, cultural and political states grew to cross geography and time. Evocative and insightful this book is a symphony of authentic voices echoing the harsh and exciting realities of lived experience and the wilds of our collective imaginings.
In this book group, Mark Alice Durant discusses, among other things:
The semi-conscious states which feed creativity
Photo as a porous and democratic medium
Performance as a portal, able to renegotiate social contracts
Transgressing the specific to the symbolic
The beauty and elegance of a rigorous photo
How we see our past, photographically
The power of exclusion to push innovation and creativity
Referenced in the episode
Teju Cole, “A Photograph Never Stands Alone”
Walter Murch, In The Blink of An Eye
Larry Sultan, “Pictures from Home”
William Pope L. in conversation at The Walker Arts Center
Marco Breuer by Mark Alice Durant
Sigalit Landau, “DeadSee” (2005)
Mark Alice Durant, “Running, Falling, Flying, Floating, Crawling”