Tag: remembering

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Positive Visions – December 1 Day With(out) Art

DayWithoutArt_Logo_500_500Day Without Art began on December 1st 1989 as a national day of action and mourning in response to the AIDS crisis… In 1998, Visual AIDS suggested Day With(out) Art become a day WITH art, and change the name to Day With(out) Art, to recognize and promote increased programming of cultural events that draw attention to the continuing pandemic. [read more at Visual Aids]

In 1996, I launched Positive Visions, a special section of my Collected Visions web project for Day Without Art 1996 with photographs and stories by and about people living with HIV/AIDS, who have died of AIDS, or who are caretakers of people with HIV/AIDS. The Web was young but was already a site of activism. I remember contacting Creative Time who used to coordinate the online DWA activities. It was very exciting to be able to connect online with people I did not know and be part of something bigger.

poslogo2

In 1997, I collaborated with young people at the Hetrick-Martin Institute, not-for-profit agency serving gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and questioning youth in New York City, to create an online gallery. Each year I would try to collect more stories, but it became increasingly hard to get the word out and there were increasing number of projects dealing with stories around the AIDS pandemic, so I stopped collecting stories for Positive Visions in 2001.

Today I search  #DayWithoutArt #WorldAidsDay

activists warn policies causing same fear from early

More history and perspective at Art 21 in conjunction with Visual Aids: 1989-What We Lost by Jim Hubbard.

 

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First Photograph of Electric Chair

From TIME Lightbox
Interesting story about this famous photograph and timely in that Tennessee is about to vote to reinstate the electric chair. Just voting on it is horrifying enough.

Daily News Front page. Extra Edition. January 13, 1928.

How the photo was taken: The New York Daily News knew that the prison was familiar with many journalists from their staff, so they hired someone from out of town, Tom Howard, a then-unknown local photographer from the Chicago Tribune. Knowing he would never be allowed in with a camera, Howard strapped a single-use camera to his right ankle and wired a trigger release up his pant leg. Remarkably, he was allowed in. From across the room, Howard pointed his toe at the chair and took but one photo as Snyder took her last breaths.

[Read more: The First Photograph of an Execution by Electric Chair – LightBox ]

… In my mind, this image is the one Andy Warhol used for his Electric Chair series, but no.

Andy Warhol, 1971

 

 

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Santiago

Estadio Nacional, Santiagophoto ©Lorie NovakI have been in Chile since Sunday with my research group “Women Mobilizing Memory” – scholars, artists, friends from NYC, Santiago, and Istanbul. We spent 5 days in Chile visiting memorial sites and celebrating the election of Michelle Bachelat. Now I am on the beach in Concon, 2 hours from Santiago trying to digest it all. Yesterday we visited the soccer stadium where prisoners were taken after the coup on 9.11.73 until the end of November when the stadium was need to play soccer (!). It was an overwhelming experience which I cannot put into proper words yet, so I choose these photos. photo © Lorie NovakA section of the seats remain as they were.

photo ©Lorie NovakIn the bowels of the stadium we are shown where the prisoners were kept. Our guide has led the fight almost single-handed to preserve this site.photo © Lorie Novak

Estadio Nacional in Wikipedia 

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LIFE, Gordon Parks, Memory

I just finished posting to my Community Collaborations blog about this fantastic piece in the Lens Blog: Gordon Parks’s Harlem Family Revisited by John Edwin Mason and Jesse Newman.

The photo essay appeared in the March 8, 1968 issue of LIFE which is online in its entirety via Google books. In reading the lens blog article and viewing the slide show I did not have a memory of seeing this essay even though I was reading LIFE magazine religiously at that time. Seeing it now, I think  how could my family not have talked about this? As has happened many times before, I am struck at how sheltered I was growing up. But then I looked at the essay in the LIFE issue online and seeing it as I saw it in 1968, I remembered it! Black inner city poverty (and so much else) was so foreign to my world in suburban LA that LIFE was how I learned about the world beyond me. And I learned it through pictures. I cannot help but think that my weekly journeys with LIFE led to many of the life choices I made.

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The Challenger Explosion 01.28.1986

I remember that I was in the shoe repair store on Bleecker between Broadway and Lafayette and there was a small TV mounted near the ceiling. As I either dropping off or picking up my shoes, there I saw the crash. The owner and I did not know what we looked at. It soon became clear. I think of the Challenger explosion everytime I pass that store.

Original ABC newcast with Peter Jennings = incredible. I recorded the audio AND
CNN live video of Challenger Crash Jan. 28, 1986

Excellent coverage with original photos, interactive, and more on MSNBC

original TODAY show coverage from the next day 1.19.1986 with Jane Pauly

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Jerry Brown & Me

It is rare that I feel nostalgic when I look at the front pages of the Times. Yesterday was one of those days: Jerry Brown then and now on his inaguration day in the lower right of the front page. I saw myself then and now. I was in my senior year at Stanford when he was elected and I had voted for him. His father was Governor when I was little and my family was Brown supporters. The horror in between father and son was Ronald Reagan who began the downward slide of the University of California. It was embarrassing that Reagan was our Governor – we were the state that had not elected Nixon as governor.

Back to the photos –  I look at Jerry then and now, and I can’t help but think of me then and now. It was my second major voting experience. The first one I voted for McGovern, so this felt very different.

I made many self portraits during college – using a mirror as the mirror in which to see myself the photographer and now 35+ years later, I use my webcam to image myself. My laptop has become my mirror.

via Lorie Novak – January 4, 2010 at 365daysofprint.com
I am a participating artist in this project for the month of January where I post something everyday inspired by the paper. It is been harder than I thought making this a daily exercise rather than something I do only when inspired. Yesterday was one of those days I felt inspired but don’t think I would have made this image if it hadn’t been for the project.

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Bruce Connor

Found this post on BRUCE CONNOR

Seeing his films in graduate school was one of those ah ha moments for me. I still remember going to his visit artist talk because I went to all the visiting artist talks. And his films using found and stock imagery opened up a entire new world for me and I can see started my ephemeral dissolving image obsession thing I have. I remember after the screening he said that he would show more films in one of the film classrooms and I went along hungry to see more. I can almost see myself then as I write this but I can’t see Bruce Connor – just his films.

Films now at Film Forum – links to reviews

and a new blog to check out – Idiom