Visiting Artist Lecture: Laurel Nakadate: March 23, 2011

LAUREL NAKADATE

Questions:
1. I am interested in the process of approaching strangers and inviting them to participate. What is your method?

2. Is it better to tell people what you intend to do with the collection of data or only tell them if they ask?

Response:
I just want to start out by saying that I have never been so inspired by the presence and words of someone in this field before. Every thought, emotion, experience, reflection, idea spoken by Nakadate was such turn on factor to my mind. I feel privileged to have to chance to hear this artist talk about her work in person. Only seeing her work live as photographs and films did not do it justice. It was her experiences and presence, the air she brought with her when sharing the work that made them so powerful. The personal and private connection she has to the work cannot be described. I am in love with what she had to say about meeting strangers in all her work. As I am dealing with working with strangers in my work, it was quite insightful to her how she approached the matter. Some of the things she said were, "meeting someone in the real world, who has no agenda and has the willingness to spend time and create something together is priceless. Mutual contribution. It is an honor to be trusted, open and vulnerable to experience, being chosen, and the thrill that comes with it... telling stories that I wasn't suppose to tell." All those things are so true and I feel so at one with those words. All those things describe my thoughts and emotion that I have for my own work. It is truly eye opening to go out into the world, meet someone for the first time and be invested with their trust, time and exchange of ideas and thoughts. Loneliness harbors in every corner of the world and it is to easy to get lost, but to be chosen and granted the chance to know someone, exchange facts; it is truly priceless. I feel that thrill and high when I interact with my strangers and have them tell me their life stories. Then telling those stories to others, not exploiting but just learning and experiencing vicariously through others.

Another aspect of her work that I definitely relate to is the desire to look and find people who are "virgins" to experiences and free of expectations, but stored with the yearning to experience and be released. Someone questioned why she only chose men who weren't very fit, awkward, old and lonely. Her reasons are completely rational. They render the most genuine reaction and engage with no agenda or expectations. The beautiful of experience of the "first times" can never be recreated. It is free of manipulation. With my current work, I feel that I enjoy coming across those who have never been photographed or approached to be photographed before. It is such a thrill to see their expressions and intriguing, questioning exchange of interaction. They are hesitant to inquire information upon the experience, perhaps fearful that it will taint their own experience. I respect her dedication to her work as well. She said, "Photography keeps us company and protects us. Excessive documentation of life's vulnerability and rawness reveals and preserves our being." It is so true. Especially her Crying Piece of 2010. A "deliberate participation in sadness" did not ruin crying, it allows for less fear of sadness and being alone.

I think something that I would like to try in the future is "walk around in public and wait for them to talk to me, be chosen by strangers." The mutual desires to create a story together and spend time is the epitome of raw human kindness. The last thing she said that stuck with me was this, "It is a danger to think everything you make has to be perfect. Mistakes and accidents are beautiful and nothing could ever be completed without them." Mistakes and accidents must be thought of not as a product or end result, but essential components and steps to perfection. She also said, "the world is amazing. The world is not a perfect set or stage, but if you allow the thought that everything can and will work out; the world is a beautiful place."

*Thank you Nakadate for your charged words that give me more confidence to trust my participants and allow their contribution to create the work and shape it. I will keep this is mind always try my best to refrain from editing and formulating.

I know for sure that order and formulas and mediation of my work have always been my weakness. I have learn to loosen my grip and allow for the work to shape me. I no longer create molds for my work to settle in, but for the work to establish their own expandable perimeters for me to explore within.