Interviews — FLOAT

May 12

May 12 Barbara Diener

“The stars will never be won by little minds; we must be as big as space itself.”
Robert A. Heinlein, Double Star, 1956

Robert Heinlein’s poetic quote could easily describe Wernher von Braun and Jack Parsons. The engineers - one German, one American - were obsessed with rocketry and blessed with the big thinking that ushered humans beyond Earth’s boundaries in the post-World War II era. But, their biographies are complicated. Von Braun was a Nazi, and Parson’s was an occultist. While the former’s wartime affiliations were scrubbed from NASA’s illustrious institutional history in order to highlight his contributions to the American space race effort, the latter was written out the same history altogether.

Since 2018, Chicago-based photographer Barbara Diener has nurtured a similar passion for the two enigmatic rocket scientists. The Rocket’s Red Glare speculatively reunites the former telephone correspondents, mapping their lives and the selective retelling of significant historical events in which one was elevated, and the other minimized. Diener’s intensive, research-based work is also a personal reckoning with her German heritage and the ever-rippling psychological effect of the war’s humanitarian catastrophe.

Our interview, which started with a Zoom studio visit and continued via email, takes up the origin of this work and how the complicated narratives of two long-dead scientists shapes her photographic practice.

Born in 1982 in Germany, Barbara Diener received her Bachelor of Fine Art in Photography from the California College of the Arts and Masters in Fine Art in Photography from Columbia College Chicago.

Her work has been exhibited at both national and international venues including the Griffin Museum of Photography, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, New Mexico Museum of Art, and Pingyao Photo Festival, China. Currently, she is the Collection Manager in the Department of Photography and Media at the Art Institute of Chicago and teaches photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Rebecca Norris Webb

Apr 19

Apr 19 Rebecca Norris Webb

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Originally a poet, Rebecca Norris Webb often interweaves her text and photographs in her books, most notably with her monograph My Dakota—an elegy for her brother who died unexpectedly—with a solo exhibition of the work at The Cleveland Museum of Art, summer 2015. She has published eight photography books, including the collaborative books Memory City (Radius Books, 2014) and Violet Isle: A Duet of Photographs from Cuba (Radius Books, 2009), both with Alex Webb; the latter exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Her photographs have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, and Le Monde among other publications. A 2019 NEA grant recipient, Norris Webb has work in numerous collections, including the MFA, Boston; The Cleveland Museum of Art; and the George Eastman Museum, Rochester, NY.

ABOUT THE BOOK
Studying at the International Center of Photography in New York, Rebecca Norris Webb first came across W. Eugene Smith’s “Country Doctor,” his famous Life Magazine photo essay. She was immediately drawn to the subject of Smith’s essay, Dr. Ernest Ceriani, a Colorado country doctor who was just a few years older than her father. She wondered: How would a woman tell this story, especially if she happened to be the doctor’s daughter? In light of this, for the past six years Norris Webb has retraced the route of her 99-year-old father’s house calls through Rush County, Indiana, the rural county where they both were born. Following his work rhythms, she photographed often at night and in the early morning, when many people arrive into the world—her father delivered some one thousand babies—and when many people leave it. Accompanying the photographs, lyrical text pieces addressed to her father create a series of handwritten letters told at a slant. Ultimately, Night Calls is a meditation on fathers and daughters, on memory and one’s first landscape, on caretaking of the land and its inhabitants, and on history that divides us as much as heals us.

Mariette Pathy Allen

Mar 9

Mar 9 Mariette Pathy Allen

Mariette Pathy Allen has been photographing the transgender community for over 30 years. Through her artistic practice, she has been a pioneering force in gender consciousness, contributing to numerous cultural and academic publications about gender variance and lecturing throughout the globe. Her first book "Transformations: Crossdressers and Those Who Love Them" was groundbreaking in its investigation of a misunderstood community. Her second book "The Gender Frontier" is a collection of photographs, interviews, and essays covering political activism, youth, and the range of people that identify as transgender in mainland USA. It won the 2004 Lambda Literary Award in the Transgender/Genderqueer category. Daylight books has published Mariette’s books, “TransCuba” in 2014, and her new book "Transcendents: Spirit Mediums in Burma and Thailand" in 2017. They are both available on Amazon or Daylight.

Mariette’s life’s work is being archived by Duke University's Rare Book and Manuscripts Library, and the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's Studies. In addition to her work with gender, Mariette’s background as a painter frequently leads her to photographic investigations of color, space, and cultural juxtapositions such as east/west, old/new, handmade/manufactured.

Mariette is represented by ClampArt in New York City.

Rick Schatzberg

Mar 1

Mar 1 Rick Schatzberg

Rick Schatzberg s a photographer living and making work in Brooklyn, New York and Norfolk, Connecticut. He received his MFA in Photography from the University of Hartford in 2018. Rick holds a degree from Columbia University in Anthropology (1978), played French horn with Cecil Taylor’s jazz ensemble in 1970s, and was a business executive and entrepreneur in the New York metropolitan area for many years. In 2015 he completed a one-year certificate program at the International Center of Photography. In the same year, his first monograph, Twenty Two North (self-published), was awarded first prize at Australia’s Ballarat Foto International Biennale. His second monograph, The Boys, was published in 2020 by powerHouse Books.

Feb 16

Feb 16 Stacy Kranitz

Life as Art | A conversation with photographer Stacy Kranitz

“The line between art and life should be kept as fluid, and perhaps indistinct, as possible".
-Allan Kaprow

This interview was conducted on December 20th, 2020 via Zoom.

Stacy Kranitz was born in Kentucky and currently lives in the Appalachian Mountains of eastern Tennessee. By acknowledging the limits of photographic representation, she makes images that create an expanded sense of authorship and accountability in which all parties (including the viewer) are complicit in the representational act as a false and yet, ultimately, satisfying and seductive construct. Her images do not tell the “truth” but are honest about their inherent shortcomings, and thus reclaim these failures (exoticism, ambiguity, fetishization) as sympathetic equivalents to more forcefully convey the complexity and instability of the lives, places, and moments they depict. In this way, her work acknowledges the failure of representation to ever be able to communicate the other.

Her work has been written about in the Columbia Journalism Review, British Journal of Photography, Journal of Appalachian Studies, Time, The Guardian, Juxtapoz and Liberation. Portfolios of her photographs have been featured in Granta, GUP, Harper’s, Hotshoe, the Intercept, Mother Jones, Oxford American, Photofile, Sewanee Review, Vice and the Virginia Quarterly Review.

Kranitz is a current Guggenheim Fellow (2020). Additional awards include Time Magazine Instagram Photographer of the Year (2015), the Michael P. Smith Fund for Documentary Photography Award (2017), and a We, Women grant (2020). Her work was shortlisted for the Louis Roederer Discovery Award (2019), and she has presented solo exhibitions of her photographs at the Diffusion Festival of Photography in Cardiff, Wales (2015) and the Rencontres d’Arles in Arles, France (2019). Her first monograph, As it Was Give(n) to Me, will be published by Twin Palms.

Jan 28

Jan 28 Al J Thompson

Born in the island of Jamaica, Al J Thompson moved to an immigrant community in suburban New York in the year 1996. Two decades later he noticed the dramatic changes to the place he once knew, projected by what he termed as 'political figures coiled with greed'.

As a devotee to the science of Psychology and Visual Arts, Thompson sets out to convey the nuances that he believes are circumstances of societal turmoil. His rhythmic approach to photography, at times envelopes people, places, and things that often generates poetic dialogue with subtlety – one that he perceives is consistent to the impression that all things relate.

Thompson has been published in several magazines including PDN, BOOOOOOOM, Ain’t-Bad, The New Yorker, C-41, La Vie, Photo Emphasis, Viewfind, Rocket Science, among others.

Jan 11

Jan 11 Harvey Stein

Harvey Stein has had a wide-ranging career as an engaged photographer working in the documentary tradition, utilizing the medium to create photographs that capture the spirit and vitality of the people and places he depicts. His prime focus is to relate to his fellow human beings in intense and close-up images.

Through enduring documentary investigations of groups as varied as identical twins, Coney Island people, the street life of Harlem, artists in their studios, people living with AIDS, and life and death in Mexico, his projects have resulted in compelling and evocative in-depth photobooks that help illuminate the human condition and reveal his commitment to building connections through photography.

Among Stein’s nine published books are Parallels: A Look at Twins (1978), Coney Island 40 Years (2011), and Mexico Between Life and Death (2018). Stein’s photographs are in over 60 museum and corporate collections; he has had 88 one-person exhibits. He currently teaches at the International Center of Photography in New York City and conducts workshops worldwide.

Visit Harvey Stein’s website to see more of his work.

Dec 15

Dec 15 Nicolai Howalt

Nicolai Howalt (b. 1970) is a Danish artist, whose photographic work spans across documentary, conceptual and installatory art. In his practice he works with dualities, connections and temporality as central aspects.
In Howalt’s earlier works mortality has been predominant, as part of an ongoing investigation of life and its fragility. The works are characterized by the absence of a decisive moment, focusing instead on the quiet aftermath in situations devoid of any narrative cues. His work is now distinguished by a unique materiality, initiated by chemical processes, where the temporal sense of both photography and existence is laid bare. Howalt’s work challenges the boundaries of the photographic medium, by reinventing traditional techniques. This encounter between chemistry, science and artistic investigation become reminiscent of alchemistic tradition as well as an exploration of fragility and the state of constant change.

Nicolai Howalt graduated from Denmark’s renowned photographic art school, Fatamorgana, in 1992. He is the recipient of honorary grants from a number of benefactors and institutions, such as the Hasselblad Foundation, the Danish Ministry of Culture, the Danish Arts Foundation and the Danish Arts Council.

Bryan Schutmaat

Nov 30

Nov 30 Bryan Schutmaat

Bryan Schutmaat is an American photographer whose work has been widely exhibited and published in the USA and overseas. He has won numerous awards, including the 2013 Aperture Portfolio Prize, Center’s 2013 Galllerist’s Choice Awards, the 2013 Daylight Photo Awards, and the 2011 Carl Crow Memorial Fellowship, among many others. In 2014 Bryan was chosen to shoot the cover of TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year 2014 issue, as well as being selected for PDN’s 30 new photographers to watch; in 2013, Dazed Magazine named Bryan one of Paris Photo’s “breakout stars,” and he was chosen as a Flash Forward Emerging Photographer by the Magenta Foundation. During his inaugural show at Sasha Wolf Gallery in the fall of 2014, his work was acquired by two notable institutions, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and The Hood Museum of Art, and he received press coverage from the New Yorker, Collector Daily, and the Wall Street Journal, among others.

Nov 12

Nov 12 Tonje Thilesen

Tonje Thilesen (b.1991) is a self-taught photographer from Oslo, Norway, living and working in Brooklyn, NY. The North American independent and DIY music scenes were the impetus for their move to the U.S in 2016, where they were curating showcases at SXSW and shooting music events and festivals for Pitchfork. Tonje's work has since shifted to editorial, and they have worked with clients such as The New Yorker, Kate Spade, New York Times, SSENSE, Canon and more.

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I began following Tonje on Instagram in 2019 but was especially drawn to their work during quarantine. In a time when we were globally flooded with daunting news and imagery, Tonje’s work (while being quarantined in Medlline, Colombia) provided a visual respite with their soft depictions of daily life and tender moments with friends.

In September 2020, Pomegrante Press released “One Another” by Tonje, a collection of work shot between 2018-2020 between the U.S and Norway.

Oct 8

Oct 8 Tess Roby

Tess Roby is a photographer and musician based in Montreal, Canada. Her photographs abstract her day- to-day movements; finding sublimity in the commonplace and delicately revealing its beauty. Roby graduated from the Concordia University Photography program in 2016, and has since completed two solo exhibitions, In View (2017), at Battat Contemporary in Montreal, and Like Water, A Window (2018), at Harbourfront Centre in Toronto as part of Contact Photography Festival. Her work has been published in VICE and by Pomegranate Press. In 2018, she released her debut album Beacon with Italians Do It Better.

Visit Tess Roby’s website to see more of her work.

Sep 17

Sep 17 Andres Rios

Andres Rios (b.1995) is a self-taught street photographer from Bogota, Colombia. Much of his work spans between Bogota and New York City where he can be found roaming the streets with a Leica M6 and pockets full of Ultra Max. Shooting all analog, his work captures everything from romantic connections on corners to quirky, dark scenes from city sidewalks. Starting March 2020, Andres had been quarantined with his mother in Bogota; a city that had very strict guidelines about leaving one's home.

For a photographer who was used to shooting strangers everyday on the street; this meant immersing himself in a new daily process of being isolated at home. Andres’ work shifted from shooting quirky strangers in public spaces to turning his camera towards his family for the first time. Eventually when he was able to see his grandparents and father he continued to document all the in between moments of life during a pandemic; right up until the moment his grandpa passed away from covid on August 16th.

Andres' work from public to private spaces still hold the same tenderness and rawness that he captures on the street. We had the chance to ask him a few questions about shooting during quarantine and photography post-pandemic.

Visit Andres Rios’s Instagram to see more of his work.

Aug 19

Aug 19 Jamie Ho

Jamie Ho was born and raised in the sprawling suburbs of Florida. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of New Mexico and is currently based in Madison, Wisconsin.

Visit Jamie Ho’s website to see more of her work.

Jamie Robertson

Aug 3

Aug 3 Jamie Robertson

Jamie Robertson is a visual artist and educator from Houston, Texas. She earned a BA in Art from the University of Houston in 2012 and a MS in Art Therapy from the Florida State University in 2014. She is a former recipient of the Pearlie Roberson Award for her joint Frenchtown Mural project. As an educator, Jamie is interested in cultural community development through creative youth development. Her creative practice explores history and identity in the African Diaspora through photography, printmaking and sculpture. Her work was featured in the 18th Annual Citywide African American Artists Exhibition at the University Museum at Texas Southern University and FAMU Foster-Tanner Fine Arts Gallery Through the Lens: Identity, Representation & Self-Presentation. She is currently pursuing an MFA in Studio Art with a concentration in photography and digital media at the University of Houston.

Visit Jamie Robertson’s website to see more of her work.

Interview with John O’Toole [Oranbeg Press]

Jul 8

Jul 8 Interview with John O’Toole [Oranbeg Press]

John O’Toole is a Boston & Brooklyn based photographer, writer, bookmaker, and founder of Oranbeg Press. His work explores familial roots through the lens of Irish Heritage.

Oranbeg Press is an independent publisher based in Boston and New York. Through a variety of publishing projects, including As of Late, Interleaves, the Net Series, and several independently published books, Oranbeg pushes the boundaries of publishing.

Kelsey Sucena (they/them) is an American writer, photographer, and Park Ranger. Their work rests at the intersection of photography and text, often within the bodies of performative slide-shows and photo-text-books.

***Interview conducted in April of 2020***

Interview with Jonathan Blaustein

May 27

May 27 Interview with Jonathan Blaustein

Jonathan Blaustein is an artist, writer, and educator based in Taos, New Mexico. He received his MFA in Photography from Pratt Institute in 2004 and has exhibited his work widely in galleries and museums the US, and in festivals in Europe as well. His photographs are in the permanent collections of the Library of Congress, the State of New Mexico, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, among other institutions.

Jonathan is a regular contributor to the popular blog A Photo Editor and spent six years as a photography critic for the New York Times Lens blog. He has also written about art and photography online for The New Yorker, VICE, and Hyperallergic. He taught photography at UNMTaos for many years and runs the Antidote Photo Retreat at his family horse farm outside Taos.

Visit Jonathan Blaustein’s website to see more of his work.

Interview with J. K. Lavin

Jan 4

Jan 4 Interview with J. K. Lavin

J. K. Lavin is an artist whose photographic practice considers memory, self-portraiture and the measurement of time. Duration, as well as experimentation with randomness and chance is an important dimension of her work.

Lavin received a Master's Degree of Art in Photography from California State University at Fullerton, California. She has also studied photography at The Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, New York and The Center of the Eye in Aspen, Colorado.

J. K. Lavin has had numerous solo exhibitions including a recent exhibition at The Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, MA. She was selected as a finalist for Klompching Gallery's Fresh 2019. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at San Francisco Camerawork Gallery, San Francisco CA, Month of Photography Los Angeles, SE Center for Photography, Greenville SC, The Center for Fine Art Photography, Fort Collins CO, Blue Sky Gallery, Portland OR, Building Bridges Art Exchange, Santa Monica CA and Fotofever Paris, France. Her photographs have been published in various on-line and print magazines including The Boston Globe, Diffusion, Los Angeles Magazine, Los Angeles Review of Books and What Will You Remember. Lavin's work is held in public collections

Visit J. K. Lavin’s website to see more of her work.

Interview with Clay Maxwell Jordan

Dec 3

Dec 3 Interview with Clay Maxwell Jordan

Clay Maxwell Jordan is a photographer who has exhibited widely both nationally and internationally. He is a 2019 MacDowell fellow and currently resides in Athens, Georgia. His first monograph, “Nothing’s Coming Soon,” was published in February of 2019 by Fall Line Press.

Consider purchasing his beautiful book “Nothing’s Coming Soon” here

Take a look at Float’s review of his book here

Interview with John Sanderson

Aug 19

Aug 19 Interview with John Sanderson

John Sanderson is drawn to broad topographical subjects within the United States of America. It is there in the outdoors he feels most creative. His photographs reconcile American motives of impermanence, and expansion within the contemporary landscape. His projects include themes such as transportation, leisure, residence, industry, and decay. The influence of growing up in New York City’s Midtown Manhattan underpins much of Sanderson’s work which is rooted in a passion for architectural design. He captures photographs for each project with multiple large format film cameras as well as smaller digital cameras as needed for commercial clients.

Sanderson’s photographs have been featured in a variety of publications such as: Slate Magazine, BBC News, The Wall Street Journal, and NBC News. Fallen Flags, and Railroad Landscapes have both been the subject of several solo and group exhibitions. In 2017, he published National Character, a Monthly Monograph Magazine, by Subjectively, Objective. His work resides in a number of private and public collections including the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, New York Transit Museum, NTR Partners, and the Center for Railroad Photography & Art.

Visit John’s Website to see more of his work.

Interview with Anastasia Samoylova

Jan 8

Jan 8 Interview with Anastasia Samoylova

Anastasia Samoylova is a Miami-based artist working with photography and installation. Samoylova has exhibited internationally, including Aperture Foundation in New York, Griffin Museum of Photography in Boston, and in photography festivals in Belgium, Brazil, France, Netherlands, Israel, China and South Korea. Her work is in the collections at the Museum of Contemporary Photography Chicago, Stanford University, Yale University, and Art Slant Collection Paris. Her book, Landscape Sublime was published by In the In- Between Editions in 2016. SSamoylova is represented by Julie Saul Gallery in New York.