Show Notes
Photographer and Educator, Siri Kaur, joins me to discuss her new monograph, Sistermoon published by Void.
Artist Siri Kaur has been photographing her family for over 30 years, and her youngest sister, Simran, is the central focus of her forthcoming book, Sistermoon. Kaur’s photographs are combined with those from her family archive to create an unconventional album, illustrating the cycles of life and transformation, whilst questioning who observes, who is seen and who belongs. Kaur’s biography informs her work. The book opens with a timeline of photographs from her mother’s traditional family, taken in the 1950s by her grandfather. Kaur herself was born into a cult—one image in the book depicts her parent’s wedding at the Happy Healthy Holy Organization, or 3HO in 1976. After Kaur's family left the cult, her father established a rural living community in Vermont where her siblings remain today. Kaur simultaneously belonged to the family and was also an outsider. Her relationship with her family, in particular her sister, was formed and strengthened by creating photographs together. Photography enabled her to observe, catalogue, and connect.
https://www.instagram.com/sirikaur/
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Siri Kaur is an artist and photographer who examines identities that occupy dualities, diversity, and contradiction. Originally from Maine, Kaur is currently based in Los Angeles. She received her MFA from the California Institute of the Arts, and an MA and a BA from Smith College, Massachusetts. Her work has been exhibited widely at venues such as Aperture Foundation, New York; Camera Club of New York; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Arkansas; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Portland Museum of Art; San Antonio Museum of Art; Vermont Center for Photography, amongst others. She was a Professor of Fine Arts at Otis College of Art and Design from 2007-2018 and currently teaches at UCLA.
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Photographer, printer, filmmaker, and author, Neil Selkirk, joins Michael Chovan-Dalton to discuss his new book, Why Photographs (a book without photographs - Warbler Press). Why Photographs is a collection of essays, excerpts, introductions, and quotes by Selkirk, Berenice Abbott, Julian Barnes, Dorothea Lange, Sigfried Kracauer, Paul Graham, and so many more. It’s a book that is historical, philosophical, and humorous but most importantly, it reminds you of why you fell in love with photography and why we still look for meaning in the image. Neil Selkirk is also the only person authorized to print for the Diane Arbus estate and we discuss that as well.
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