Repository, 24/5/2011. From Second Cousins. Photo: Jason Lucas
By Jason Lucas / From Chillicothe, Ohio
I recently wrapped up a busy summer exhibition schedule with the opening reception for Second Cousins, a group exhibition at Marshall University’s Gallery 842, put together by Jamie Miller. All told, I participated in five exhibitions this summer, including Second Cousins and Destructive Criticism, which was put together by Christopher Lusher and Yasmine Ganley.
The two groups of photos I showed in Second Cousins and Destructive Criticism were from my primary body of work, which I always have a little trouble describing. If pressed, I’d say that in these two groups of photos, I’m asking questions about perception, consciousness, and sense of place, in an attempt to show the ways in which the “invisible” still speaks and has meaning — even if, as a culture, we’ve stopped paying attention.
One thing that seems to accompany our often very busy workaday lives is a uniquely modern way of forgetting, a tendency to “unplug” from our environment in order to selectively manage the glut of information we face (as well as to avoid and deny the things we find unpleasant). So it’s like a defense mechanism, meant to help us — but I think we lose something in the process. As we gloss over and eventually stop really recognizing the buildings, trees, signage, animals, landscapes, and people around us, these details become invisible to us, leading to a state in which we (quite literally) don’t know where we are! I mean, if someone asked “where are you right now,” we could probably point to it on a map, or name the address, cross streets, city, country, or whatever — but if we’ve been disengaged, we don’t really know the place we are in any given moment, because we’re ignoring and suppressing it — denying its importance.
So in these photos, I’m reconsidering the everyday and the unsung. I think this “reconsideration” is what William Eggleston meant when he referred to “a democratic way of looking around,” in which the accepted ideas about the relative importance of an object or a scene are discarded, allowing the photographer to view (and the photograph to capture) the environment in a different way. And while I only discovered that there was even such a thing as contemplative photography in the last few months (and only got a copy of The Practice of Contemplative Photography a couple of days ago), I think it’s what Andy Karr and Michael Wood are referring to when they write about “clear seeing,” and about the distinction between “perception” and “concepts.” I’m amazed at how much of the book resonates with my current practice, and have been really pleased and challenged to think about my practice in terms of contemplative photography.
Ultimately, I think paying attention to what is ignored (and sharing the photos that result) gives voice to many more of the things that affect us symbolically and color our day-to-day lived experience — not just the people, places, and things we are conditioned to recognize and pay attention to.
Inattention, 28/4/2011. From Second Cousins. Photo: Jason Lucas
Big Plans, 20/5/2011. From Second Cousins. Photo: Jason Lucas
Its Own Devices, 13/4/2011. From Destructive Criticism. Photo: Jason Lucas
False Alarm, 11/5/2011. From Destructive Criticism. Photo: Jason Lucas
You in Mind, 5/5/2011. From Destructive Criticism. Photo: Jason Lucas
