10 Questions with Andrea Gluckman

Andrea Anderson Gluckman is an international award-winning photographer and writer who uses her platforms of academics, activism, and art to witness and leverage the stories of communities devastated by mass violence. Schooled as an expert on policy, culture, education, and religions of the Middle East, she worked as a diplomatic advisor, professor, researcher, and director at Harvard University, the University of the Middle East, and the University of Rochester. Her research specialties include the project of justice after mass violence, through which she used photography and the documenting of oral histories for education and evidential purposes. Using her research from post-genocide Rwanda and South Africa, she sought venues for establishing transitional justice structures in the Middle East. The documentation from that research evolved to be transformative art for her.

Originally from the deep south of the United States, Andrea has refocused her artistic attention to reckon with the deeply violent histories of racism using the skills and tools developed for international conflict. She is currently the Artist-in-Residence for the Elaine Museum and Richard Wright Civil Rights Center, where she is working with the community to develop exhibits, spread the story of the Elaine Massacre through artistic means, and facilitate creative placemaking in areas healing from violence.

Using multiple tools, Andrea crafts and collaborates to create performance installations and multi-modal exhibits designed to uncover and amplify invisible histories and buried truths. She incorporates drone work, video footage, and immersive projection into her photographic work to provide experiences that are inescapable, haunting. The goal of her work and collaboration is to communicate, as Sally Mann said, “the emotional information of the image,” for a greater purpose.

She is currently based out of Rochester, New York, where she teaches and works collaboratively with artistic communities on issues of social justice, indigenous truth-telling, and anti-racism work.

www.aspexiimages.com | @aspexi_images

ARTIST STATEMENT

Acting as an emotional witness is at the core of Andrea Gluckman’s photography—a witness to conflict, previously invisible stories and people, and singular moments demanding expression. Beyond witnessing and capturing a moment, Gluckman curates it for an emotional, empathic response. Her work distills the emotional layers and textures into a succinct and stark experience that arrests the viewer into engaging with the image on a deeper level. Gluckman accomplishes this through a combination of creative composition and post-production work which transforms ordinary moments into otherworldly scenes and/or creates a visual accompaniment to an oral narrative or history, either of an individual or a community. Gluckman’s artworks make visible, what Sally Mann called, the “emotional information” of the image and, often, create a call to action.

INTERVIEW

First of all, introduce yourself to our readers. Who is Andrea Gluckman in three words?

Professionally speaking, I can say who I aim to be in three words—witness, translator, and facilitator to and of experiences.

You have a rich and engaging personal story and many different life experiences. What is one experience or encounter that shaped you into the person you are today? 

The most powerful set of experiences to shape my artistic life involved travel. I was fortunate and naïve enough to travel alone and also with my sister as a very young person—before cell phones and the internet. We traveled to Russia, India, a number of Middle Eastern countries, and central Africa as teenagers/young adults originally from the deep South of the United States. Those sets of experiences changed me at the cellular level, from my understanding of reality to my perceptions of beauty and humanity. To have experienced that with my sister has allowed me to maintain that original wonder of witnessing through shared memory, which still greatly informs my art.

You use photography to document historical events but also oral histories and cultures. What inspired you to follow this path?

I agree with Susan Sontag's belief that photography "discloses," rather than constructs, and that ultimately, photography is way of seeing and "conferring importance." However, I disagree with Sontag that photography inhibits intervention, but rather I think it can serve as a witness on multiple levels to a situation and its stakeholders. This transformative power to witness and disclose is the defining feature of why I photograph.

The documentary nature of photography is powerful and undeniable. Indeed, I have used it as such in my research and travel, and before the ubiquity of cell phones. What I have been working on in recent years is the artistic power of photography to tell stories, many of those stories unknown, invisible, buried. How can an image tell a story that was not witnessed photographically? How can I craft an image to communicate what Sally Mann calls "the emotional information" of the image to amplify a story that has not been told/recognized/made visible? In particular, I have been working on how to amplify the stories and work already being done by Indigenous communities in western New York and communities of color in the deep south of the U.S. Elevating oral histories through artistic modalities allows for a different experience of truth.

In a society so flocked with images, do you think photography can still have a relevant impact in transmitting such information? 

This is an eternally relevant question, and I am not sure what the answer is. We are inundated, not just with consuming images everywhere, but also with taking pictures on various devices. All. The. Time. I believe that it is more of a challenge to interrupt the individual focus on constantly curating one's life in images through Insta and Snap (I am not hating on these apps—they have brought basic editing skills and filters to wider audiences). By this, I mean that having a relevant impact on a viewer is more than just fighting for optical consumption. It is fighting for attention, mental focus, and pushing people out of their own frames of how they would capture the moment your image is communicating. However, I make art every day, so I have to believe that photography can still move people to attention and, sometimes, even to feeling and action.

And how do you differentiate your works from that of other photographers? 

I don't actively work to differentiate my work from other photographers; I think we all naturally create and evolve as artists over time. I consider spending time with other artists' work as an important part of my work day—and not just photography but other forms of visual art, dance, music, or storytelling. The richness of ways in which the many modalities of art can move me powers my own work. I do think there are certain techniques that I use that may differentiate the physical differences of my photographs, but those techniques have been largely driven by the multi-year projects I have worked on. I will say that there is an equal amount of time and effort put into the photography itself and post-production, which may also be a differentiating factor. I am seeking to witness/tell/amplify stories that have their own unique things to communicate; therefore, I aim to be flexible enough to meet the stories where they are and create images based on that starting point.

How do you work on a specific project? How do you choose which events or histories to document, and how do you work on the project? 

I feel that projects choose me, at least initially. I have started on projects that address invisible histories in places where I have physically lived/am living. I feel I have to excavate my own landscapes first—past, present, and future, before being able to build out the skill set I need when applying my process to unfamiliar places with unfamiliar histories. I try to plug myself into places where I can be most effective at that moment in terms of amplifying the work already being done by communities and where my skills can be most readily applied. At that point, I spend as much time as I can in the area/community/land of that project, engaged in deep listening, deep seeing, and deep feeling. The process also involves intense back and forth with community members, stakeholders, and other artists to refine the authenticity for the sake of the project at hand. Integrating feedback that is not explicitly artistic can be a challenge, but it is an essential step in the deep listening and creative process.

Do you have one series or project you are particularly proud of? 

I am proud of any work I can create that feels authentic to the subjects of the images. In that vein, I am particularly proud of the Remnants series, which works with three main elements—pictures of ancestors (old images I did not shoot), pictures of dancers (which I did shoot), and pictures of landscapes, (which I shot with both with camera and drone). I stitch composites together that reflect elements of the project's Onodowaga storyteller, including grafting images of her ancestors into the landscapes of unceded territory of the Haudenosaunee confederacy. To share these images with her and with the public to tell a story her story of ancestors who never leave the land is a responsibility and an honor I take very seriously. Similarly, I weave images of the dancers of the Remnants project into the natural settings/sites where the art installation occurs. The outcome is a different perspective of body, land, self, and connection. If it moves people, I am proud. And the Remnants project does move people.

What is one theme or story you would like to work on but still haven't had the time or chance to address? 

In a general sense, I want my work to evolve into visual projects of how communities live together after periods of mass violence. I am interested in the everyday interactions, a physical proximity born of necessity, between historically oppressor communities and historically oppressed communities. Examples could include South Africa after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Rwanda after the mass reintegration of people who had participated in the genocide, Palestinians forced to live in liminal spaces between checkpoints, and communities of color everywhere who deal with racism, red lining, gentrification, and systemic bias. What do the daily one-on-one interactions look like between community members? How can those one-on-one moments artistically push us into a new reality? 

What are you working on now? Do you have any new projects or exhibitions you would like to share with us?

I am currently working as the Artist-in-Residence for the Elaine Museum and Richard Wright Civil Rights Center, located in the Arkansas delta. In addition to working with the community of descendants of the Elaine Race Massacre of 1919 to craft images to accompany oral histories, I am lucky to be a part of a larger creative placemaking initiative for the delta. The other project I am working on involves a multimodal art installation that is site-specific, and includes photography, projection, dance, music, spoken word, and Indigenous storytellers. That project, entitled Remnants, is rich exactly because of the collaborative nature of the project creators and cast, as well as the challenges of exhibiting visual art in natural settings—usually outside in the elements and always on a new site.

And lastly, where do you see yourself five years from now?

Professionally speaking, I am seeking to learn more about projection mapping and projection in art installations. The immersive quality and the arresting approach of art installations can help to break through what you asked about earlier—that flood of images we contend with every day. The added sensory experiences of projection can push people to interact with the art differently, albeit often unconsciously so. I am looking forward to also expanding my drone photography and videography, both for artistic and social justice endeavors. Most importantly, I hope I am still learning and practicing new ways of creatively communicating emotions through my images.