Recording article – https://www.lensculture.com/articles/paul-thulin-a-ballad-through-time
This book looks just the sort of thing that relates to my own visits to Ferentillo and the long-term recording of my time with the boys there.
I’m interested in the various types of images included here and the blending of a family album with something ‘more’ – as described in the article, “Fact and fiction become indecipherable from one another and family history turns into folklore, with switching viewpoints and protagonists that morph into their predecessors with the turn of a few pages, while eerie mythical characters lurk in the shadows. Rather than preserving history in a neat and orderly fashion, this is a family album that activates it, allowing the past to flood the farmhouse, its inhabitants and the surrounding orchard as it stands today.” (Wright, 2019)
This chimes with many of my ideas and in particular Random Notes for a Short Story which I’ve been jotting down over on my Sketchbook blog.
I am as frustrated as Thulin seems to have been: “Thulin’s first steps into photography were as a nascent philosophy graduate who had grown increasingly frustrated by the limits of language. Describing his approach as “docu-literary,” the artist favours the enigma and emotional dimension of text and image, as well as the fact.” (ibid)
I also can’t say how much I LOVE this old image – and that is it included in the book alongside mono, new and old. Thulin’s way of working reflects a dissolution of boundaries which emerges from a more systemic way of looking at life. (Another article I’ve saved this recently describes this well – “We are dealing with the complexity of a profound societal change and the transition towards diverse regenerative cultures as manifestations of not only a different way of being in the world, but also a different way of seeing the world.” (Wahl, 2017)
I originally came across Thulin on Lensculture but BJP’s article is more comprehensive and clearer too. https://www.bjp-online.com/2019/02/paul-thulins-pine-tree-ballads/
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