Big brain, broken body. Chris Case.
When I arranged to meet with Sean Pevsner for the first time, I was nervous. I knew that Sean was a quadriplegic. I knew that he worked with a personal assistant to communicate and function at home and in society. I knew that he was in his final year of law school at the University of Texas in Austin.
When I first approached him, he was sitting outside on the Lamar pedestrian bridge, his personal assistant, Michael Galante, by his side. They were there to study law.
I saw before me a 32 year old man strapped to his wheelchair, arms dangling outwards and often upwards, contorted and moving sporadically, involuntarily. He struggled to bring one arm forward so that I could shake his hand. I did so. I was awed.
He spoke to me directly, yet his words made no sense; they all sounded the same—just noises. But Michael understood, if not all the words than the way in which to decipher the word by having Sean spell it out, communicating with eye blinks and nods. I looked to Michael for the interpretation.
Our conversation was brief; we exchanged very little information about ourselves. But, having interacted with what seemed like a sound mind on a body in turmoil had struck me with the sense that this life was something to be documented and displayed; more people should be awed by these circumstances and struck by the implications of this story. Sean possessed amazing amounts of perseverance, persistence, and desire to pursue a career in law under such circumstances. My curiosity had been roused.
Who was Sean? What made him fight so hard?
Beginning in 2008, I hit the road for three years to photograph America solo; living out of a tent and bringing along my dog for the ride. While traveling in Maine, I discovered a Bingo hall and it provoked a curiosity about a subculture that I was unaware of. What I discovered was a community of dedicated players who travel to the same place, set up in the same spot, and bring along the same good luck charms with the hopes that this will be the night that they win big.
As I continued my travels across America, I also kept on my quest to find hidden or otherwise unknown bingo halls. When I found a location of one, I also found a sense of community that wasn’t expected. Although many of the dedicated players may be aging, it’s something that they look forward to each week. You might feel bad or sorry for some players because they come and leave alone but as I was talking to “B” in a hall in Fort Collins Colorado, she made a point to remind me that it, “beats sitting in front of the boob tube at home!”
Stephanie Borcard and Nicolas Metraux.
Who are Stephanie Borcard and Nicolas Metraux? We are a Swiss couple living for the past 9 months in Asian hotel rooms. Currently we are in Sichuan province, China. We like to travel slowly and to spend time in places. We are rather shy and solitary. We work on personal projects, developing calm and poetic images. Our photography is subjective. Through our recent series of photographs, we try to create a set of emotions, rather than to document a specific subject. Human interactions have always been our source of inspiration. We used to get very close to people. Now, we appreciate a certain distance. Before coming to photography, Stephanie was a teacher and Nicolas a woodworker and an architect. In your website you state that photography is a way to express your curiosity about life and its expressions beyond cultural and language barriers… We are curious! We are always interested what is behind the next bend of the road. In the beginning, we were very attracted by the cultural differences. This state of mind has matured and changed to an attraction of human similarities. Our project, Varanasi, night wanderings is a statement about death. It concerns us all. Even if the Hindu funeral rites are completely different than those in the Western world, the outcome is the same. It was a very powerful and beautiful experience. By your words, for you being a photographer is not a profession, it is a way of life, to understand life, discovering the world and their connections… Do you feel more alive on the road? There are different kinds of photographers as there are ways of thinking. We have adapted our way of life accordingly to our creative process. The question of feeling more alive on the road is quite tricky! By answering yes, it would mean that life at home is quite boring… This is not what we want to say. But of course, life on the road is very exciting and challenging. What has attracted you to Asia? The two giant countries India and China had an overwhelming impression on us. We really felt a complete change of scenery. We like to be immersed in strong cultures. We come from Switzerland, a tiny dot on the map. In Asia, generally speaking, we feel this boiling power, a sort of gold rush. Everything changes extremely fast, day-by-day new buildings rise and cultural habits change. In contrast to this bustling pace, our photographic language tend to be intimate and contemplative. Since 2003 we regularly come to Asia. We spent two and a half years in the East from 2006 to 2008 without returning back to Switzerland. We developed an affinity with the countries we visited, returning several times to China and India. As Marc Riboud said: “Places are like friends, you want to keep in contact with them, to be informed about their changes and to find out how they evolve.”
Robert Leon. Yucateca Maya man at the Chichen Itza ruins, Yucatan, Mexico.
When you live with indigenous people for a period of time, how do you feel personally? How do you see the modern society in which we usually live?
I’ve felt connected in some profound ways, in terms of feeling at home with authentic people who have wisdom and good sense of values living harmoniously with Earth and each other. But in other ways I feel alienated from them because I’m from the Western World where a lot of people are very destructive to the Earth. It looks like Indigenous people have a very large amount of disdain towards “modern society” - they see the huge amount of damage being done to the Earth – who they (and I) consider Mother Earth - and so they take the raping of the Earth for Her resources very personally.
So bridging that gap between me, being a Westerner, and the indigenous people takes patience and gaining their trust. It’s a bridge with a huge gap between the two sides; on one side of the bridge is the “modern” world’s immense population with unsustainable consumerism and on the other side are people living and sustaining themselves in harmony with each other and Mother Earth. But the side with most power - the “modern” world - has the most damaging effects in terms of the environment, nature and social well-being. The discrepancy seems really enormous, like a battle between David and Goliath. It seems the only way balance will be reestablished on Earth is by an enormous shift in people’s consciousness and evolving humanity - or a Divine phenomenon like an Avatar coming to Earth to reset the balance and restore harmony.
