Place-Making

Place-Making: "Anthropologist Keith Basso describes place-making as a work of "retrospective world-building" that enables a person or community to see a place in all its richness and complexity and hold that place in the imagination."(1)

'"places possess a marked capacity for triggering acts of self-reflection, inspiring thoughts about who one presently is, or memories of who one used to be, or musings on who one might become. And that is not all. Place-based thoughts about the self lead commonly to the thoughts of other things - other places, other people, other times, whole networks of associations that ramify unaccountably within the expanding spheres of awareness that they themselves engender."4 This is, I believe, a lucid description of how contemplative awareness, rooted in a sense of place, gradually comes into being. It is not unlike what the early Christian monks described as the work of rumination, that long, thoughtful chewing-over of experience aimed at helping to surface in the soul the deep significance of that experience.'(1)

"It seems important to note that even as Thomas Merton was learning to pay attention to the geographical and ecological particularity of Gethsemani, he was also feeling the impact of the work of place-making on his inner life, his imagination, and his memory. A noticeable wave of memories, dreams, and reflections from the late summer and autumn of 1961 reveals Merton to be poised on a knife's edge, looking back toward where he had come from and forward toward a still-unknown future. Place became the language for negotiating this complex transition."(1)

Bibliography:

(1) Burton-Christie, Douglas. "Place-Making as Contemplative Practice - Page 2 | Anglican Theological Review." Find Articles at BNET | News Articles, Magazine Back Issues & Reference Articles on All Topics. Web. 03 Dec. 2010. .

I chose the term: "place-making" because this is exactly what happens to me whenever I find a new house. I learned something new about myself and what attracts me to these abandoned houses. I always think about the past and the future when walking through the houses.

Photographer's Forum Entry

Lecture - Alexandre Singh

Unfortunately I wasn't able to find much of Singh's work online so I really couldn't get a feel for what his work was about before the lecture. There were parts of Singh's lecture that I found interesting but thought mostly that it was more of a lecture on psychology than anything. I had to force myself to stay awake at times. I understand where he needs to explain where he is coming from and how he thinks about things. I wonder though if there is a simpler way to explain. I think that I have come away more confused than I was when I couldn't find much of his work online. I think that I need to read his book and maybe then I will be able to understand him a little better.

VMFA Submission

Lecture - Zoe Beloff

Zoe Beloff's lecture was very entertaining to watch and listen to. Most of the lecture I was not sure if what she was showing was real or fiction, which made it more entertaining. I am wondering though if she might have multiple personality disorder. I found her work to be very educational even though it was all fiction and very playful at the same time. I like the way that she has turned some of her interests into a work of art by playing out what she believes about the subjects and what she imagines. There still has to be some truth in what she shows since she has researched the subjects so much she wouldn't be able to help but put some truth in her work. The trick is knowing what is true and what isn't.

Idea Blog - Past Times (?)

While reading Svetlana Boym's The Future of Nostalgia I came to the realization of what really draws me to the abandoned houses that I photograph. Lauren asked me to include the fact that these houses have to be rural houses but I couldn't figure out why they had to be rural. After I had moved to Richmond to attend VCU my parents separated. Once they separated they sold the house that I grew up in. The house is a country farm house. This is the reason behind the houses that I photograph having to be rural.

"Like the scientists of the eighteenth century who proposed that posets and philosophers might be better equipped to analyze nostalgia, so some psychologists of the early twentieth century, including Freud, suggested that artists and writers have a better insight into the dream and dread of home. Reading the fantastic tales of E.T.A. Hoffman to understand the mysteries of the familiar, Freud examined multiple meanings of the word homey (heimlich) from "familiar", "friendly" and "intimate" to "secretive" and "allegorical." The word develops greater ambivalence until homey (heimlich) finally coincides with its opposite, the uncanny (unheimlich). We desire what we fear most, and the familiar often comes to us in disguise. Hence the gothic imagery of haunted houses and familiar Hollywood tales of the spooky suburbia, the ghostly other side of the American dream. At first glance, it appears that nostalgic, the lost home and the home abroad often appear haunted. Restorative nostalgics don't acknowledge the uncanny and terrifying aspects of what was once homey. Reflective nostalgics see everywhere the imperfect mirror images of home, and try to cohabit with doubles and ghosts."

(Boym, Svetlana. "On Diasporic Intimacy." The Future of Nostalgia. New York: Basic, 2001. 251. Print.)

Bibliography:

Boym, Svetlana. The Future of Nostalgia. New York: Basic, 2001. Print.