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Yes, HYPO: Nº 02, in which Brett Gundlock brings back images and stories from the migrant trail. Also: I wonder about blind acceptance; throw in some photos of winter; ask for feedback about sharing work-in-progress, and; if you make it all the way to the end, some swell pix of my mom and dad from 1946.
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ON THE MIGRANT TRAIL: Brett Gundlock
A group of migrants met in the early hours of October 12th, 2018, in San Pedro Sula, Honduras and formed a caravan. Men, women, and children pledged to protect each other in the journey across Mexico, to their goal, the United States. Strength in numbers.
I met them at their temporary camp in Mexico City. I brought the mobile studio with the goal of recording portraits and testimonies, and followed, photographing, as they loaded onto the back of semi-trailers and slept in parking lots. Finally, I photographed in Mexicali, the last leg of their journey, in a notorious shelter dubbed the Migrant Hotel.
Borders are a fluid thing; historically they can fade away. Globally, the world is experiencing historic movements of people. Refugees driven from their homes by the inter-woven mayhem of violence and poverty. These moments will be remembered as markers in the history of our shared land.
-Brett Gundlock
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“I'm not afraid. I have never been afraid,” said Francis Eduardo, a 14-year-old from Copan, Honduras, at the “migrant hotel” in Mexicali, a notorious migrant shelter in Northern Mexico.
“I did not say anything to my family when I left. I just left with my luggage. I did not say anything to my mom because she was not going to let me come.” When he called her to let her know that he arrived to Mexico, she cried, but she understood his motivations and encouraged him to move forward.
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A discarded sleeping bag left over by the migrant caravan traveling from Central America, in Queretaro, Mexico, November 11, 2018. This caravan was made up of thousands of people and one of the biggest caravans to date. Migrant caravans have been happening for years: people from Central America travel together for safety.
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“I am fleeing because they killed my mom and my brother. I am in danger too,” said Kenia Arias, 19 and her daughter Sury Belyiny Ramos, 4, from Tegucigalpa, Honduras, in Mexicali, Mexico. Arias had to leave her other six-month-old baby at home. “It’s very hard to leave the family and yes, it really hurts and one does even the impossible to seek the American dream, to seek a better future, a better life, because in our country you cannot even live.”
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BLIND ACCEPTANCE
A while ago I tweeted: Just saw a gallery director walk into a room exhibiting unambiguously mediocre (to be kind) work by a *name* artist. He said, before he even looked at the work, "Oh look, work by (insert artist's name here), this is great". How can you respect that?
Jörg Colberg replied: "photoland," even though I hadn't mentioned that the artist in question was, indeed, a photographer. Mr. Colberg might be prescient, but probably he was saying that this sort of thing, blind acceptance, is endemic in, well, photoland. Not to mention the art world in general, and, come to think of it, our whole mediated world.
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Cindy in landscape
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Another interesting response was from Andrew Molitor: "The work is only the most recent manifestation of a Complete Package! It's largely irrelevant!". I pondered that for a few minutes, figured out what he was saying, and thought, well that's an interesting way to look at it.
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By the way, Jörg Colberg's blog, Conscientious Photography Magazine, is one of the few photoblogs I always read. After reading Mr. Molitor's response I was curious to find out about a mind that thinks like that, and found his blog, Photos and Stuff. It's shit-disturbing, iconoclastic and raucous; it names names. True, it's sometimes too in-your-face and rant-y, but I'm adding it to my blogs-to-read list anyway.
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D.C.P.D.
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Mr. Molitor and Mr. Colberg are both fuelled by passion and thinking, but they come at photography and photoland with very different, one could even say, opposing, philosophies. If you ask me, there's room and reason for both these. Anyone interested in thought-out and, yes, entertaining takes on photography might want to give both a read.
It's time to get out of our silos and at least consider views that might be contrary to those we consider sacrosanct. And to accept the idea that opposing views can both be valid.
Conscientious Photography Magazine
Photos and Stuff
And: Jörg Colberg has just started a newsletter which I'm quite enjoying. Subscribe to it here.
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Book, Anza-Borrego Desert, California
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WINTER
I want/need to have some photos of winter in my new, unnamed and, so far, amorphous project.
So I'm wandering around these cold and snowy days, looking for images that support what the project might be "about". (In a nutshell: an amazed, alien view of the locations and situations where my interior and exterior worlds intersect. Whew!)
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Icicle
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Path
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Camera beside me, I look, trying to recognize a connection. Despite (and because of) what I said in HYPO: 01 about "knowing what I'm doing" that recognition, when it happens, feels somehow like a fresh discovery.
Not straightforward. But one thing leads to another, unless you're in a loop.
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If you are a photographer/artist who has an opinion on what follows I'd appreciate you sending me your thoughts. If a few of you respond I'll do a follow-up. I'm interested to see if HYPO can become more of a two-way effort . . . me and you. Trying to engender that ever-illusive "community". Thanks.
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Some photographers like to keep their work-in-progress under wraps. You know . . . no sharing until they can spring it, fully-formed, on the public. Me, I write and talk about, show bits and pieces of, whatever project I'm currently engaged in.
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There are a few reasons I like to do this . . .
The main one being that the writing (and sharing) of my thoughts about what I'm working on is a great help. For instance, that bit in the item right above this one, where I described my new project in a nutshell? Well, I probably never would have come up with that precise (although still tentative) description if I hadn't been writing. Those kinds of insights hone my approach.
Another reason: I don't believe in the mystery of artistic endeavour and production. It's no secret, a person wants to make something, they do the work. And the work of forming the thing is, for me, just as important and interesting as any finished product.
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HISTORY
"These were the snapshots which our children would look at someday with wonder, thinking their parents had lived smooth, well-ordered lives."
- Jack Kerouac
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Mom, 1945
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Mom and Dad, 1946
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Dad, 1948
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