Photographer And 'Blind Spot' Author Teju Cole Comes To The Triad

New York Times photography critic Teju Cole visits the Triad Tuesday night as part of the Voices of Our Time series at Wake Forest University.

The author and photographer was born in the U.S. and raised in Nigeria. He currently lives in Brooklyn.

His most recent book, Blind Spot, is a genre-crossing work combining visuals and text. It was written following a medical condition that left Cole suddenly, and temporarily, blind.

More than 30 images from the book and their accompanying text form the basis of the photography exhibition of his work hosted by Hanes Art Gallery.

Cole recently spoke with WFDD's David Ford.

Interview Highlights

On the intentionality behind Cole's photography:

It's important to me that none of this be phoned in. I mean, with a project like Blind Spot for example there's something quite delicate afoot which is to convey these low-pressure images and yet to have them be forceful in some way, to have them be cumulatively forceful.

These are not the pictures that are necessarily going to get a lot of likes on Instagram or work for advertising or be approved by a photo editor at a popular magazine, because they're not images that are making their impact in an instantaneous way which is what advertising images need to do. And we're surrounded by such images.

So, when you make the choice to go for low-pressure images— images that are, on some level, refusing many of the reassurances that images normally give us — well, then there's a lot of intentionality there. How do you control that? How do you do that in a way that the image does not have such a low pulse that it just dies, but it doesn't have such a pumping activity that it's superficial?

On engaging the viewer:

So, that's the struggle — hopefully for the work — and for me what helps [the photos] work is that they're not supposed to stand alone. They're supposed to be a rhythm of, ‘I've read the text. Now I'm moving to the next one,' and by the time you read five of them there's already something watchful, brooding, but hopefully also sort of generous that's happening. There's something that is settling in where the person who has written this text and the person who's made these images is also inviting you into a space...

That sort of slow motion arrival can be very pleasurable, but it requires preparation on the part of the artist, and it requires generosity and patience on the part of the viewer.

On empathy:

I mean, empathy is really important. This is a book and a project and an exhibition. They've all arrived out of an experience of some physical frailty, you know, temporarily going blind in one eye. And then the vision is restored, and this work then comes out of a kind of gratitude for seeing. And so, they're very quiet, they're very intent, but they're almost holy in a way that still life painting is holy, paying close attention to the ordinary world and the effect of light on the ordinary world.

So, to open up myself to the viewer in that way and say, ‘Look this this life is fragile. Let's spend some quiet time looking at what's happening here.' And then having that extend out, of course, to political questions...that's so important to me. And I think it's going to be even more present in the work I go on to do.

(Ed.: This transcription has been lightly edited for clarity.)