J. Sybylla Smith, In Conversation with S. Billie Mandle

 

Episode #47, Summary

S. Billie Mandle’s visual incantation of human traces of the intangible experience of forgiveness.

Episode Notes 

Using a large format camera with available light, Mandle compiles 40 color images of confessionals within Catholic churches across America. In illuminating spaces containing moments of grace, Reconciliation offers viewers the opportunity to seek, witness, and contemplate experiences of their own.

In this conversation, S. Billie Mandle discusses, among other things:

  • Correlations between confessionals and cameras 

  • Photographers as collectors

  • Ways we create meaning as individuals and a society

  • Research impacting and shaping a project

  • Benefits of a design studio 

  • Quieting color

  • Following affinities

  • Cold emailing for collaborators 

  • Embodying paradox

  • Impact of oppressive societal structures 

Referenced in the episode

Stellar Skytron

Night of the Fiestas - Kirsten Valdez Quade

Kehrer Verlag

Everything Studio

Dust Collective

Images As Action and Reflection Panel

Mass Cultural Council Berkshire Taconic Artist Resource Trust Fund

Mass Art

Cabinet

Rebecca Solnit - The Blue of Distance

Culture As Catalyst - Isolde Brielmaier

Cynthia Cruz - Disquieting 

Sovereignty of Quiet - Kevin Everod Quashie

Barbara Bosworth 

The Land in Between - Ursula Schulz-Dornburg

Bluets - Maggie Nelson

The Poetics of Space - Gaston Bachelard 

Felix Gonzalez-Torres

Published by Kehrerverlag

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Artist Talk — Jaina Cipriano

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J. Sybylla Smith, In Conversation with Jim Dow and April M. Watson