Cheryl Meeker
May 02 2009
Cheryl Meeker at the Orchard, May 3, 2009
The Orchard Projects: Tell us a bit about what you’re doing as a conceptual photographer.
Cheryl Meeker: In my latest project, Depleted Selves, I use photography as a means of examining the use of depleted uranium in the world and potential responses to it. Almost viscerally, I decided to try to turn portrait photography upside down in response to the fact that our country and other countries continue to use of depleted uranium weapons when they’re so harmful to everybody and everything, ultimately, regardless of whether or not you’re a direct victim of them.
TOP: Why did you choose portraiture, as a very specific form of photography, as a means of examining this issue?
CM: Though the issue is more about us, I’m actually using portraiture because it leads to other things. I’m not interested in art that illustrates a concept per se; I’m more interested in art that opens up other connections. As important as it is, the political and social problem of using depleted uranium is just one of many topics that we could pick up and examine in a similar way. Portraiture leads to a broader conceptualization about ourselves; in a way I was already looking toward the idea of depletion of our environment, depletion of monetary fundamentals in this country and around the world, and the depletion of ourselves. Using portraiture is a way to fundamentally address something that can allow for a broader way of thinking about one topic. It reflects back on us, it addresses who we are and what kind of identity we have. Yet there is no individual identity in these “anti-portraits” I’ve made. The irony of it, of course, they were able to communicate who they are and to reflect their personalities and viewpoints through the collaborative process and ultimately determine how they were to be pictured as their response to the materials I gave them to read. So the portrait still reads even though it is not what I think of as being superficially identified to the physiognomy of the subject. Maybe in this way it is even more reflective of who they are.
Left: Cheryl Meeker, black hood, 2007, c-print, 24 x 30 inches, courtesy of the artist; Right: Cheryl Meeker, shroud, 2008, c-print, 24 x 30 inches, courtesy of the artist
TOP: You were on KPFA radio recently and the moderator asked you, “are you an activist.”
CM: I didn’t really want to answer that question because, at the time, I wasn’t ready for it, though I wish I had given a more articulate answer. The problem with that question is that it is yet another symptom of our whole cultural problem of specialization. We have people who are ‘activists’ and then we have people who are, I guess, ‘pacifists.’ So it was a problem in my mind and why I laughed and replied, “well... Yes. Sort of. Maybe… Or something.”
I think art is collaborative, in a sense, when it actively engages with an audience. The idea that some people are activists and the rest of us are just consumers dismisses a real activation. So the real question is how do we engage ourselves? How do all of us engage ourselves to affect a real change?
TOP: Jean Genet describes dusk as being “between dog and wolf,” the time of day when people half hope, half fear that the shadows they see will transform into a wolf. David Levi Strauss suggests this as an apt analogy to the way people react to politically committed art.
CM: It's a place where you can tell the truth and potentially get away with it or you can lie in a way that might be interesting. You can do anything in that realm and let it play out.
Diagram showing depleted uranium in commercial aircraft
TOP: Most of the figures in your photographs are covering their eyes and face. The Depleted Selves website refers to this as a blindness, but couldn’t it be more of a way for the subject to hide their identity? In a similar way to how the Gorilla Girls’ masks functioned, could this be a way for your subjects to dislocate their specific histories?
CM: Yes I completely agree with you. The piece on this project’s website which talks about blindness is written by Valerie Imus. The curator of my exhibition at Mission 17, Clark Buckner, also refers to it as blindness. I don’t like to use that term myself I don’t feel that's what the project is specifically about -- especially having a brother who is blind. What they’re referring to is that we’re kept from seeing this information on the use of depleted uranium in the world around us.
TOP: Also, if their identities were revealed in support of your project they might find themselves on a government list somewhere.
CM: Exactly. I didn’t want any of my projects to have those sorts of repercussions on any of these people yet I wanted to give them the opportunity to engage with it. I wish everybody knew about this. By giving the subjects the choice to participate and to read the information, my project became successful if they carried that information on with them. After reading the information I provided, if they chose to participate in the collaboration of this anti-portrait they had free license to express themselves however they wanted. They could say what they wanted to in the photo without holding back from fear of their identity being revealed. I was blown away by how some of them took full advantage of this freedom. I didn’t take control over how they did it. They had the option to shoot on location some place, my studio, wherever. I actually got really paranoid over their brazenness for a while. I would tell them they could remain totally anonymous and they responded, “why?” I came to realize that if they were this blasé about it they probably didn’t know much about the issue.
TOP: This project is very much a collaboration then.
CM: What was fascinating about this project is how I had the opportunity to collaborate with the experts in this field. These people were incredible, Dan Fahey and Gretel Monroe, Doug Weir with the International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons. I was completely amazed.
Checkered Facts: Steven Wolf discusses facts and fact checking, a panel discussion in conjunction with Depleted Selves at Mission 17
TOP: You have been working on this project now for about 4 to 5 years right?
CM: Figuring out the lay of the land in the world involved in the banning of uranium weapons and deciding the best people in the field to contact was a rather exhaustive process. There is a coalition of seventy-two organizations all over the world working on this subject. I contacted these people with my project and they were really supportive and willing to help me. So when it came time to choose those experts for the panel discussion I didn’t choose those who had been discredited already and so I had this list of names from my research. Dan Fahey had just given a lecture and presentation in Brussels for the U.N. At first Dan didn’t want to do it at all. The “Left Wing” had quoted facts incorrectly in their zeal to dramatize the situation, which in turn had been flamed by the “Right Wing” cheerleaders as over-exaggerated bullshit. After I explained the project to him more fully, he understood I was trying to be careful not to provide misinformation. I was fully aware of the damage that had been done, from his point of view, and why he was extremely careful about the topic. So, He understood and realized that he could give a better contribution and thus agreed to participate. He was incredible!
TOP: Can you give us a little history of Stretcher.org, the online publication where you’re one of the publishers?
CM: It’s simple, really. There were a few people sitting around and complaining, as usual in San Francisco, about a lack of printed discourse centered on art and cultural production. People wanted an intelligent and relevant publication and there was only one locally produced art publication at the time. So basically we decided to attempt to fill that void.
TOP: When you were talking about not being interested in work that is illustrative of a concept but rather work that facilitates connections between different concepts, do you approach Stretcher.org in the same way?
CM: Definitely! That's what I really like about it. The same kind of collaborative process is involved. Stretcher, especially working with other people, creates something that's much different than anything we could have created individually and the pieces we write and publish on Stretcher definitely reflect upon each other. It is similar to the way that pieces relate to each other within an exhibition context.
Cheryl Meeker at the Orchard, May 3, 2009