Laurel Nakadate Questions/Response

In a lot of your work, you seem to be placing yourself into many potentially very dangerous positions.  Has this ever become an issue?  Or is that something that you want the viewer to interpret along with your work?  Do you ever feel like there is any exploitation involved in your work?

I feel as if the power of narrative still photography can be very strong.  Why did you decide to move away from still photography and towards film?

I really enjoyed Laurel Nakadate’s lecture.  I was introduced to her work over a year ago, in hopes to get inspiration on how to communicate with strangers.  Her methods are a little extreme for me, but I suppose if I wanted it bad enough like she did I would find a way as well.  Her tone was very pleasing, and it seemed like she was trying to have more of a casual conversation about photography and film rather than being lectured.  I feel as if the way she started out the lecture was appropriate, discussing the idea of failure and having that be okay, since she was speaking to a bunch of lost college students. I would describe her work as provocative, evocative, and clever.  She has an interesting way of studying genders. In regards to my first question, Nakadate stated that at the time of making the work, she didn’t really realize how potentially dangerous it was, yet looking back now, she would never do it again.  In regards to the idea of exploitation, I still see it in her work, yet maybe seeing the process building up to choosing her subjects, or actually, letting her subjects choose her, would remove that aspect.  But she spoke of an interesting bond between herself and her subjects, who were willing to drop their guards and make a video with her, and some she still collaborates with.  She spoke of visual fact and narrative fiction, which I believe is a very important aspect to both photography and film work.  I feel like I am more interested in her video work now after hearing her speak of it.  She began making them in grad school, in a new town without knowing anybody.  One of the most important things about making art is passion, and she became obsessed with making these videos, disregarding her social life, and created fictional relationships recorded on film.