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Karl
Baden (Cambridge, MA), Leslie Ernst (Austin, TX), Marion Faller (Buffalo,
NY), Margaret Morton (New York, NY), Melissa Shook (Jamaica Plain, MA),
Sally Stein (Los Angeles, CA), Jim Stone (Albuquerque, NM), Margaret
Wagner (Jamaica Plain, MA) "Flaggingspirits" is an evolving project. A week or so after September 11th, Sally Stein e-mailed me from L.A. that she'd begun photographing the burgeoning number of flags suddenly appearing. I immediately asked if I might join her. Since Sally and I are both more oriented to flag burning, a hold-over from the Vietnam War protests, than to the current flag waving, we conceived of the work as a critique. I assumed that we'd show prints, somewhere, some time, but then realized that the web is a better place for this work. By then, I'd mentioned the project to Margaret Wagner, a colleague at UMass/Boston, who was intrigued by the idea. Soon I realized that learning how to design a site by myself was totally impractical. It was a short step to inviting Margaret to join us and then to the idea of expanding the project to include people in different geographical areas who think about and use photography in very different ways. I suggested Marion Faller, who lives in Buffalo, to join us. By then we were a loose collaborative, making collective decisions via e-mail (some of which are available in a binder). The concerns were -- how many photographers would join the group, where they'd be located, how many images each would send in. We started with fifteen or twenty images each, assuming this would be a relatively small site with an even number of photographs per person. Sally suggested that Leslie Ernst from Texas join the group. We'd decided to limit ourselves to one photographer per area with the exception of Boston. However, when I mentioned our project to Karl Baden and learned that he'd been photographing since September 11th and was really interested in our idea, I lobbied to include him though this would over-balance our region. By then I'd decided that it was more important to invite participants who'd actively been photographing from September 11th on rather than stick to the geographical distribution. Karl's been active in adding other photographers representing different regions-Margaret Morton, New York, and Jim Stone, New Mexico. Margaret Wagner has designed and maintained the web site. She will revamp it in the future. We now have a student intern to help. My main task has been as general e-mail conduit, tallying votes as we make collective decisions as best we can. The Boston group dominates more than we hoped, but because the site is based here, that's probably inevitable. Though we haven't communicated about our personal reactions to the devastation of the World Trade Center, we probably share general political sensibilities. I think all of us are thoroughly engaged in this project, in recording the signs of these times, the displays of poignant patriotism and of blatant commercialism. And each hopes it will be a valuable record, an archive. We plan to remain actively photographing until September 11th, 2003. Melissa
Shook |