-
T. Cole Rachel
fireworks
fireworks after the fireworks stand closed for the summer it was only a matter of days before we broke into the camper in which my uncle had stashed the leftover boxes of black cats, jumping jacks, conical fountains, charcoal snakes and an array of small tanks, rockets, and—our favorite—the “laying” hens which shot sparkling, screechy
-
T. Cole Rachel
This is a Photograph of Me
This Is a Photograph of Me It was taken some time ago. At first it seems to be a smeared print: blurred lines and grey flecks blended with the paper; then, as you scan it, you see in the left-hand corner a thing that is like a branch: part of a tree (balsam or
-
T. Cole Rachel
stay beautiful
stay beautiful in this photo, a sign by which I passed--both willingly and sometimes, unwillingly-- for the first 18 years of my life on an almost daily basis perched on the outskirts of town, this simple marquee has stood guard for decades, whitewashed annually but quick to weather it is the last thing one sees
-
T. Cole Rachel
All My Pretty Ones
My obsession with Anne Sexton started when I was a teenager. The dark, deeply troubled, and occasionally hysterical tone of her poems stuck a chord with me on a very deep level. I was a sullen, gothy teen and any poet responsible for a poem called "Wanting to Die" had my immediate attention. Given that
-
T. Cole Rachel
Poetry and Photography
It’s been my good fortune over the past year to teach a class on “Poetry and Photography” via the Camera Club’s ongoing education series. To be honest, though I have an MFA in poetry, my knowledge of photography was spotty at best. Having now done the class three times, I feel like I’ve had my
-
Lorena Marrón
Photography and Violence 7: Archival Impulse
Rosângela Rennó, Río-Montevideo (2011) Brazilian artist and photographer Rosângela Rennó (b. Belo Horizonte, Brazil, 1962) explores in a systematic way historical objects with the aim of contextualizing them in its time and place, working obsessively since the 1980s with visual archives as her “raw material.” In 2011, she was invited to do a residency
-
Lorena Marrón
Photography and Violence 6: Ilán Lieberman’s Lost Child
According to Mexico’s Senate, between three or four children disappear every hour in the country due to the following causes: 67%, illegal abduction of parents in conflict with each other; 9.3%, voluntary absence (victims leave home because of domestic violence or sexual abuse from parents or other members of the family); 9.3%, theft; 2.3%, minor
-
Lorena Marrón
Photography and Violence 5: The Language of the Dead. An interview with Carlos Amorales
In The Language of the Dead (2012), Mexican conceptual artist Carlos Amorales (Mexico City, 1970) turns shocking photographs of Mexico’s drug-war dead found online into characters of a photo novel. This photographic novel is composed by fifteen black and white pages in which photographs of dead people, bodiless heads among them, speak to one another.
-
Lorena Marrón
Photography and Violence 4: On Memory
1. Shimon Attie’s The Writing on the Wall, 1991-1992 Walking in the streets of the city that summer, I felt myself asking over and over again, Where are all the missing people? What has become of the Jewish culture and community which had once been at home here? I felt the presence of this lost
-
Lorena Marrón
Photography and Violence 3: Carlos Aguirre and the Mexican Landscape
It was not only its escalation and its geographical expansion that set apart the violence experienced throughout the so-called “war against drug trafficking” in Mexico. It was also the brutality of the executions; its expressive level of cruelty, which is impossible to forget. The violence exercised by the narco-gangs or the narco-machine as Rossanna Reguillo