Navigating through the irregular reams of white spaces on Teju Cole’s Instagram, the common association between what a person cares about and that which he photographs is immediately apparent. In Known and Strange Things, Cole expands on these issues through a curated collection of essays: from the Black Lives Matter movement to pensive reflections on his travels. The book takes the reader through Cole’s psyche the way his pictures do—with clarity and coolness, unveiling revelations through redemptive words (much like his Instagram captions). In the exhibition A True Picture of Black Skin, Cole contextualizes our understanding of photography, exploring the history of cameras and exposing their racial prejudices. He explains how “[t]he dynamic range of film emulsions... had limited sensitivity to brown, red or yellow skin tones,” and how “[l]ight meters had similar limitations, with a tendency to underexpose dark skin”. The particularity of the black skin is also explored in Black Body, in which he writes about his visit to a Swiss village, where he was a recipient of “glances”, surmising that “to be a stranger is to be looked at, but to be black is to be looked at especially”. In his own idiosyncratic way, Cole pulls together disparate concerns and nurtures them with biding patience and thoughtful deliberation, all while grasping at the sense of “hurry through which known and strange things pass”.
Share
Related
Consuming media in another language
by Marie Lim
Recommendations for explorations in the everyday. It’s time to switch up your routine.
Read Ursula K Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness
by Grace Hong
Fresh perspectives: practices to enliven routine and re-energise the soul.
Reorganising your bookshelf
by Marie Lim
Recommendations for explorations in the everyday. It’s time to switch up your routine.
Read Art and Only Art
by Grace Hong
Recommendations to make room for explorations in the everyday. It’s time to switch up your routine.
Reading a biography of someone you don't like
by Olivia Wong
Turn off the autopilot: manoeuvres to transform the everyday.