The Animated Portraits of Lisa Crafts

July 9, 2020
  • As we continue the run up to our next brick & mortar exhibition, On the Inside: Portraiture Through Photography, we are excited to offer a sneak peek at the innovative work of Lisa Crafts. She has created a gallery of photography-based portraits that depict thinkers, activists and dreamers who are engaged with issues arising from the effects of human impact on the environment. 
     
    Each portrait is an expressive fiction/non-fiction video collage, and contains a visual narrative that incorporates ideas, fears, insights, intentions and contradictions that emerge from conversations with each participant. These silent works, each one minute in length, exhibited on vertical monitors, use animation to disrupt literal and authoritative documentary as a means to open up conversation and invite new ideas.
     
    Below are stills from the four works that will be featured in the upcoming exhibition, along with notes from Crafts' conversations with the subjects.
  • Rigoberto Lara Guzmán, Community Gardener, Social Activist, 2017 Animation includes compost, chickens and circuitry
    Rigoberto Lara Guzmán, Community Gardener, Social Activist, 2017 
    Animation includes compost, chickens and circuitry

    On using technology for climate justice,

    "Who controls technology? Old technology was indigenous and female."
  • Nicole Lindsey, Urban Beekeeper, 2019 Animation includes ragweed, sparkplugs and seeds
    Nicole Lindsey, Urban Beekeeper, 2019
    Animation includes ragweed, sparkplugs and seeds
    “I talk to my bees and play them music, they know my scent and my face. When bee colonies were collapsing across the US, the bee population was growing in Detroit. It had been bankrupt, and there were 70,000 vacant lots. Wildflowers were growing without pesticides and bees flourished.”
  • Xiye Bastida, Student, Climate Justice Activist, 2019 Animation includes soil, monarch butterfly, bullhorns
    Xiye Bastida, Student, Climate Justice Activist, 2019
    Animation includes soil, monarch butterfly, bullhorns

    Speaking of the Youth Climate Strike, Xiye said,

    “September 20 isn’t a goal, it’s a catalyst for future action. It’s a catalyst for the engagement of humanity in the protection of Earth. It’s a catalyst for realizing the intersectionality that the climate crisis has with almost every other issue.”

  • Brandon Balengée, Artist / Biologist, 2019 Animation includes mutant frog, spotted gar, oil, formenifera
    Brandon Balengée, Artist / Biologist, 2019 
    Animation includes mutant frog, spotted gar, oil, formenifera
    “Evolutionarily we are changing. We are becoming lots of things fast. Something new is emerging from the loss.”
  • On the Inside: Portraiture Through Photography is a group show featuring an international selection of photographers and image makers, offering the opportunity to deepen an ongoing conversation about self across borders of all kinds. Stay tuned for details about the exhibition opening.