A CONSTANT CONDENSATION, America, and A Most Beautiful Thing
Featuring a podcast episode with Sydney Holmes
Welcome to the fortieth installation of The Q : your one-stop weekly newsletter of culture recommendations.
Featured Article
unfinished by Sudeep Bhargava
How do I interpret history? Nowadays I find archives of images, evidence that people and ideas have existed for far longer than our digital structures would have us think. When thinking about queer histories and myself as a queer person, I have to consider that the things I create, the way I exist with myself and others, and the way I interpret my political autonomy it are all a part of queer history. How do I define queerness? How have I experienced queerness? I created images that explore these questions through a relatively simple yet widely expansive photographic process called cyanotype. The chemistry is painted onto a substrate and utilizes UV rays from the sun in order to create an image.
Album
A CONSTANT CONDENSATION by Amani
A CONSTANT CONDENSATION is like hearing the inner monologues of someone’s forgotten voice memos over the course of a year. Each song feels so personal yet so distant. It never feels like Amani is presenting anything to us as listeners. Instead, it feels like we are peeking into his world. A CONSTANT CONDENSATION does not try to mask its sadness, pain, or joy. Amani puts his emotions on his sleeve and shows us a complex picture of who he is becoming, both as a person and as an artist.
Film
America directed by Garrett Bradley
Bradley’s short film serves as a response to the MoMA’s uncovering of Lime Kiln Club Field Day (1914), which is believed to be the oldest surviving feature film with an all-black cast. Seventy percent of all feature-length films in the U.S. made during 1912-1929 have been lost to fire and deterioration vulnerability, or neglect and destruction. Inspired by this extreme loss of memory and culture, Bradley reimagines both true and fictionalized black figures of the early twentieth century that have been lost to time.
Book
A Most Beautiful Thing by Arshay Cooper
Arshay Cooper’s A Most Beautiful Thing is an engaging and thought-provoking autobiography that details the rise of America’s first all-black high school rowing team. Beginning in 1998, five boys at Manley Career Academy High School on Chicago’s west side accomplished more than making history in the crew world—they instilled hope into a situation of utmost desperation. Cooper’s chronicle is an emotional and dynamic journey through neglect, violence, and division turned brotherhood, perseverance, and resistance against structural limitations that destroy unity. Cooper’s tale exhibits that even the most divided situations are capable of unity and restoration.
Playlist
Florence’s “DJ Mix 1 - House/Lounge” features Nao, Kali Uchis, and Tinashe
Florence’s favorite track: “MONEY CAN’T BUY“ by Yaeji
Description: “My first set list if I were a DJ. Good for driving downtown at night with the windows down!”
Podcast
Episode #40: Watermelon Juice and an Interview with Sydney Holmes
On this week's episode, Sam and Teresa interview Sydney Holmes over a cup of watermelon juice. Originally from Atlanta, Ga, photographer Sydney Holmes aims to tell visual stories through her work that feel emotive and dignified, whether she uses her camera and creative eye to foreground stories that already exist, or to create space for ones that yet don't. She is a soon to be graduate of Yale University with a major in Art/Photography. Sydney is incredibly adept at carefully executing any artistic vision, whether as creative director, or as a collaborator, and has a wide variety of experience photographing for large institutions like Yale and the International African American Museum, celebrities such as Jidena and Playboi Carti, and a host of smaller organizations. Sydney talks to Teresa and Sam about stories she hopes to tell through photography, photography as an academic discipline, and her inspirations.
