Amy Stein
An
interview with Brooklyn photographer Amy Stein
Interview by Alexandra Tursi / Images copyright
Amy Stein
Posted: January 29, 2007
The following images come from Amy Stein's "Domesticated,"
"Stranded," and "Women and Guns" projects. Click
to enlarge in a new window--but please do not re-use the photos
without the artist's permission.
It is said that Amy Stein's photography
"explores the beauty and tension in moments unseen,"
that it is an exploration of "our evolving personal isolation
from community, culture and the environment." Stein is a photographer
based in Brooklyn, New York. She is the winner of the 2006 Saatchi
Gallery/Guardian Art Competition for her series "Domesticated."
Raised in Washington, D.C. and Karachi, Pakistan, she holds advanced
degrees in Political Science and a Master of Fine Arts from the
School of Visual Arts in New York. She has exhibited nationally
and internationally with work featured in publications including
Photo District News, ARTnews, Vanity Fair
Italia, Smithsonian Magazine and The Washington
Post. You can check her out on the web at Amy
Stein Photography.
Currently she is on location in New Orleans, and it is there that
she took the time to speak with me about what she's working
on, her inspirations, the power of an artist and exploring political
issues through art.
You are currently in New Orleans. What are you doing there?
I'm working on a project called "Do You Know What
It Means?", a photo-archiving project funded by The Carnegie
Foundation. We're archiving life before Katrina in New Orleans,
gathering archival images, photographs and artifacts to create on
online database and website and to also put together a show of the
work. What we're doing is documenting life before the hurricane
and flooding, trying to capture the spirit of community, how the
streets looked, how life looked in the most devastated areas of
the city.
It's a follow-up to a project called "Here Is New York," a photographic
response to 9/11. We're working with the same gentleman who started
that, Charlie Traub, Chair of the M.F.A. Program in Photography,
Video and Related Media at the School for Visual Arts in New York.
After 9/11, Magnum Photo created a storefront to share images of
9/11, both professional and amateur, and the project grew. People
could buy photos, share photos and donate photos--it was a spontaneous
community reaction to 9/11. After Katrina, Charles decided to do
something similar in New Orleans and create a way for a devastated
community to respond to disaster; photography is the tool we're
using to do that. People bring photos and talk about life before
Katrina, many non-professionals simply bringing photographs, for
some it's the only thing they saved when they left. So we're gathering
those images, hoping it will amount to a true picture of New Orleans
when we're done.
In what way do you think this project has the ability to
change the way people live their lives?
When I speak to people down here in New Orleans, I often hear them
say that they live in the reality of devastation; they're
living in a day-to-day existence of bleakness, crime, fear, and
desperation. The suicide rate is up; the rate of depression is up.
Thinking about the images we're gathering, we're putting
together life in one reality and remembering another. Collecting
those experiences into one cohesive body allows people, in some
ways, to escape their current reality. There is a real value to
the gathering of images that affects people at a core level. As
a photographer, I'm often on the road working on projects
on my own, reacting to culture or society. It's interesting
to guide people on a tour of their own photographic past.
How do you develop ideas for a series? What is the creative
process like for you?
Each series is different, but usually grows out of the last series
I worked on. For a while, I worked on a series called "Women
and Guns." I became interested because I was working in and
around Washington, D.C. at the time of the Beltway sniper attacks,
and I became fascinated by the reaction. At the time, you were afraid
to go outside. I was working in a small town in Maryland for National
Geographic and people were walking around town with guns on
their backs. I became interested in guns and people's relationship
to guns in D.C. versus a small town right outside the city. While
in Maryland, I became interested in taxidermy and our relationship
with the natural world. Then, I moved to New York and became more
removed from the natural world and that lead to my "Domesticated"
series. So one series leads to another. I tend to respond to forces
around me. In New York, I was feeling really divorced from nature,
feeling that I wanted to do a series where I returned to nature,
so I decided to explore my feeling of being isolated.
Do you research issues of interest as an idea takes shape?
How does that inform you work?
I often have an idea, then I read up on the idea, read literature,
fiction, newspaper stories or scientific studies about the idea,
study illustrations and sketches. From this I start to form in my
mind visual ideas. The images in "Domesticated" were
inspired by newspaper articles and stories people told me. I tend
to react to the world around me. I like to read a lot and distill
a lot of what I read. I think about politics a lot and distill that
down to my own work. For example, my next series is about mass migrations
of animals and linking that to migrations of people. I'm starting
to conceptualize that series. I approach the process both logistically
and intellectually. I've been reading a lot about the immigration
debate, while also studying animals that travel en masse to migrate.
So there is a mixture of the practical and the fantasy.
It seems that ideas continue to grow as you work on a project.
How did you move from the exploration of nature in "Domesticated"
to your series "Stranded"?
Each series spawns another series. Sometimes the connection is
obvious like "Women and Guns" to "Domesticated,"
but other times the connection is more symbolic, like isolation
from society and from ourselves. I always try to work on more than
one thing. I work in series, not just photos, wherever I go. I like
to think about a series and work on a series that has multiple layers.
"Stranded" is about the vulnerability of a breakdown, but also a
commentary on living in society and the indifference of others,
the distrust among people. In my view we live in a pretty bleak
and perilous time post-9/11. The American landscape is becoming
more and more homogenous and soulless and that trend is really distressing
to me and this is my vision. What I've decided to do is photograph
the motorists who find themselves stranded.
You grew up in Washington, D.C. and Karachi, Pakistan.
Talk about that.
My parents were in the Foreign Service. We moved to Pakistan when
I was two and spent six or seven years there in Karachi, which is
no longer what it was; Americans aren't based there anymore.
Then we moved back and my parents worked for the State Department
and I came to know other families from all over the world.
You have studied political science. How has that impacted
your work?
I worked in politics, specifically on one of the first political
websites, Policy.com. I started photography five years ago and now
it's a full-time thing, which is great. With Policy.com, I lived
in New York and worked collecting political content, but then the
big Web bust came and I no longer followed the political game on
a day-to-day basis. My interest in photography started earlier,
though. My mother worked for the United States Information Agency;
she ran a photo library with photos from all over the world. I grew
up with a huge archive of photos. I was initially interested in
the photojournalism side of photography, but soon realized that
the content of my work didn't have to be literal to mirror what
was going on politically. For example, "Stranded" is a series of
pictures of people whose cars have broken down, but it's about class,
socioeconomic status, race, who has stuff and who doesn't. Most
of the people who break down are those who don't have nice cars,
who don't have Triple A service. It's a slice of life, in a way.
I will be returning to Texas to take more photographs for this series.
I think I've gotten to a point where I can work with things visually
that aren't obviously political, but that meaning exists on a deeper
level. I like work that is multi-layered and that is the work that
people respond to. I think the most successful work people can access
on many different levels.
Who are artists from whom you derive inspiration? Why?
The painter Barnaby Furnas, whose work is influenced by action
movies and gun violence, is an influence. His work is very visceral;
it really shocks, there are bullets shooting by and people being
blown apart and that is something that I bring to my work. Shocking
is too easy, but you want to grab people by the throat. Another
influence is Alex Soth. Some photographers are influenced by content,
some by work practice. I'm very aware of honing my work practice.
I think you can suffer from lack of discipline, logistically and
intellectually. He is someone who goes out in the world and works
to elevate his photographs to a fine art. I try very consciously
for my work to function on both levels. Some other big influences
are Gregory Crewdson of Yale and Jeff Brouws, who also photographs
life on the road; the American highway is such a huge part of our
development as a country.
You have said, "As a photographer I am drawn to
any discussion of the cultural significance and deeper meanings
of color." Explain that.
In my work I'm constantly thinking of color, but not in such a
specific way. Color creates mood, visual cues. A lot of color photographers
are making black and white photos in color; some of my images fail
on that level as well. Though I'm often very concerned with color
in my work, I don't create images with color codes in mind. It is
something I think about in terms of other people's work, such as
Eggleston, who uses very lurid color, or Jeongmee Yoon, Christian
Patterson or there's Lisa Robinson, whose series "Snowbound" explores
white in color photography. There is blankness and stillness in
the break from intense colors. Jeongmee Yoon explores how children
are color-coded and how those colors play into gender roles, and
also explores our material culture, how consumer society is forced
upon our children before they have a chance to make decisions.
What do you feel is an artist's greatest strength?
An artist is powerful to the extent that our society supports and
values art. The great joy is looking at culture and commenting,
sharing a critical view; that's what I feel like I'm
doing. It's hugely therapeutic to share my vision of society
and, as I'm showing my work, have people respond to it. Artists
have the ability to steer dialogue and debate in the art world.
People go to shows or look at books and, hopefully, respond to the
work they see by seeing their own lives, culture, and society in
a new way that they hadn't thought of before.
We go to art galleries to challenge ourselves in the best sense,
and if artist's work resonates, it can impact culture and
society. To the extent work can translate and be accessible, and
there are available venues to intelligently discuss work, whether
aesthetic or activist works, art can be powerful.
What is an artist's greatest weakness?
The market! I think people are greatly influenced by the market
and interested in making art that will sell. I find a lot of contemporary
art is high on shock value. To have subtle, well-made, provocative
art is important to me. Ultimately, can I make the work that I envision
in my head? That's tough. A lot of people can't translate
their vision into something tangible. Getting work out there also
becomes an issue. There are a lot more artists than galleries and
finding an audience for your work is a challenge. Web sites and
blogs are helping to expose new artists to a broader audience, but
exposure alone is no guarantee of success. The art scene has become
really commercialized, which is great for contemporary artists to
sustain their works and make a fair living, but the market tends
to be reactionary and rewards work that isn't smart. This
makes me angry because I'm trying to make my work thoughtful
with a good physical quality. You hear about people masturbating
on paper and people buying that and that makes me upset. I'm
sure there is a collector for everything but not letting the market
influence the art is a really tall order.
Where do you work?
I have a studio in Chelsea that I'm never in. My workspace
is in my head. I gather imagery to incorporate into my work and
carry a notebook. I guess my real studio is in my brain, which is
funny because there is a photographer who wants to photograph my
studio as part of a series on artist's space.
I create most of my images in my mind, but I make the work while
traveling highways, visiting small towns, and meeting people that
spark my imagination.
If you had unlimited time and resources, what else would
you do?
That's a good question! I have so little time. I often wish, if
I had the time and talent, to paint and express myself sculpturally.
There is an artist, Michael Joo, who explores a lot of the same
issues I do. To work in another medium would be a challenge and
something I don't have the time to pursue. I would do more
sculptural images. Eric Swenson, a sculpture who also has a lot
in common with my work, uses animals and animal forms to talk about
society and culture and the death of nature. I'd like to look
at other forms of art and incorporate them with my own medium. I
have a lot of ideas and not a lot of time. I often have to ask myself,
"How can I carve out time to be a better artist and express
my ideas potently?" So I would probably also spend more time
thinking and sitting and daydreaming and let that influence my work.
Some of the best ideas come when I let my brain float a bit. I think
my work would improve if I were to tap into that subconscious and
let it flow.
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