Nomadland and the Visualization of Loss

I just finished watching the film Nomadland filmed under the direction of Chloe Zhao. (I want to watch her other films and read the book by Jessica Bruder.)

I watched the film a day after listening to a talk by photographer Daniel Kariko. Tthe germ of much of Kariko’s work seems to be an attempt to examine his own sense of loss and placelessness as he lives in a world in which his native country Yugoslavia no longer exists. He has recently begun a body of work documenting the life of the Balkan diaspora titled Days of Summer Past. There were so many echoes of his family and community’s experience in my own family’s and community’s experience in Appalachia. Those generational migration patterns and ‘being of two places’ is something that I want to explore more – I will need to face a rereading of Hannah Coulter at some point in order to begin that exploration.

But it was his project Speculation World through which he documented the Florida real estate crisis following the 2008 recession that came to my mind as I watched the film.

Kariko’s work encompasses same time period as Nomadland. Looking at his photographs of skeletal neighborhoods with empty lots gave my mind a visual and architectural context for the setting of Nomadland. The film portrays the loss of place through the life of the main character Fern (Frances McDormand) . The main triggering event of the film is the closing of the US Gypsum operation resulting in the disappearance of an entire zip code in Empire, Nevada. USG closed because there was a drastic reduction in the demand for sheetrock that is so nakedly documented in Kariko’s photographs:

Two for Two, Daniel Kariko, 2009

I have been thinking about how it has taken more than a decade for those events to make their way into our mainstream visual storytelling devices. We cannot fathom the full impact of loss without perspective. My viewing of Nomadland also serves as a reminder that we view everything through context. My viewing of this film would have been a completely different experience two days ago.

Amos Kennedy - Proceed and Be Bold

"Amos Kennedy Jr." by Virginia Humanities is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

This week’s book arts resources included a video about letter press printmaker Amos Kennedy - Proceed and Be Bold! Amos is an interesting character. The documentary talks a bit about the rise in letter press work in general - Hatch out of Nashville has a cameo appearance. Hatch is on my places to visit.

I really enjoyed Amos’s sense of humor and frankness. His Nappy Gram project was awesome - as was his response to being questioned by the police department regarding one of his affirmative action post cards. There is a section of the film that addresses him calling himself ‘negro’ that is very informative and challenging. I respect how he confronts things head on and uses racially charged icons and stereotypes. It seems as if he’s saying our problems aren’t going to go away if we just clean up our language and iconography and ‘make nice’.

The most interesting part of the film for me was when Amos was discussing the passing away of the southern rural African American way of life. It is a rich culture that we don’t seem to pay very much attention to.

Below is the link to Proceed and Be Bold! I highly recommend it.