A tattooed, shirtless man lies in the back of an old car, his body draped over its dirty seats, covered in flowers, light spilling over his face and onto his hands. He looks into the lens, to viewers for connection, trust, or even a simple nod. A fallen chandelier sits on a wood floor - its glass crystals scatter in front of half-open bedroom doors decorated with a horseshoe – a failed good luck charm. A broken ankle, photographed next to its royal blue cast becomes a lifeless still life amidst glasses, flower petals, molding bananas, and a mysterious red powder.

Throughout Kristina Knipe's ongoing series "Talisman," photographed over the past few years within her community in New Orleans, people and objects flow in and out of various frames as signs and symbols of pain, yearning, hope, mortality, and the space between. Knipe constructs and photographs various environments - largely people’s homes and other personal spaces to better understand her own identity, her relationship to ritual and symbolism, her experience living in New Orleans, and as a means of deep collaboration.

After visiting Knipe’s New Orleans studio last December when I was in town for PhotoNola, we caught up to discuss the color, magic, and deep metaphors in her work.

Jon Feinstein in conversation with Kristina Knipe

Erica With Cracked Magnifying Glass © Kristina Knipe

Jon Feinstein: Before we get into the poetry, process, and magic behind your photos, let’s talk about healing which is so central to this work, and feels especially important right now.

Kristina Knipe: Yeah, a lot of my process is about a desire to heal. Creating a work of art that really acknowledges the difficulties and complexities of life in a beautiful way is therapeutic to me. One example in the Talisman series is Soleil with Injury from Mardi Gras Day. Mardi Gras is a beautiful and cathartic time that I have a lot of reverence for. The wildness and debauchery that come with it sometimes have consequences. Soleil and I made a picture together to memorialize her broken ankle. Traumatic memories can be really hard to integrate, but making art can be a space to process them.

The aesthetic I create and arrange in my art extends to my home and my identity. It is also my way of creating a safe space where what I value is celebrated and protected. There is so much you do not get to choose in this world, but through worldmaking in my art, I choose to deal with what is difficult by transforming with beauty. Sometimes, I deal with difficulty that’s more subtle. In Erica with Cracked Magnifying Glass, the crack in the surface of the glass is painful yet beautifully striking. That shade of red calls our attention with immediacy because it is the color of the blood. In my work, there’s a sense that there is something to be healed from. During a shoot, a lot of respect is paid to the body, which I think is healing.

Feinstein: Prior to this series, you were photographing people who self harm. In some ways, this feels like a followup chapter or a response to it...

Knipe: I learned so much about myself and how I want to make photographs from shooting Artist Seeks Self Injurers. Talisman can be viewed as a sort of followup chapter. In Artist Seeks Self-Injurers, I looked for narrative in the marks upon the body, and the narrative life of objects as well. I learned how to tell a story through metaphor. I would meet with a subject once, often in public and talk, before ever photographing. I would ask them to show me objects that were special to them.

I used these practices in making Talisman. I make art about what I know well, or come to know through looking and listening.

Soleil with Injury from Mardi Gras Day © Kristina Knipe

Feinstein: Building on that, what draws me so much to this work is that while it’s incredibly colorful and aestheticized, you’re not capitalizing on trauma or looking in with an outside gaze – many of these photos are your friends and community. Let’s go a little deeper – where you are in this? Why are you making this work?

Knipe: Literally, where am I? Well, some of the objects are mine in the photograph. I work in collaboration to arrange the space, the pose of the body, the objects. I’m in one photograph, and I might put myself in some more.

Feinstein: What's driving you?

Knipe: I want to stop the relentless flow of time so that I have something to hold onto. I am afraid of losing people, afraid of losing all the beauty I’ve seen without a tangible record. I’m fulfilling my need for a space where femininity, queerness, messiness, brokenness, and healing are valued, respected, and seen. I hope that by making art I continue to learn and grow and remain in relationship with others, as I am most afraid of stagnancy and withdrawing from the world.

Self Portrait. Angel's Trumpet © Kristina Knipe

Feinstein: Towards stopping (or slowing!) the flow of time – you’re using a 4x5 camera - while there's a pretty overdone discussion of the 4x5 as a "tool for slowing things down" I think it’s a valid conversation in the context of your work. It adds an important, forward-facing, empathetic dimension to looking and feeling.

Knipe: Slowing down allows both my subject and I to be comfortable. I want them to look as if they’ve been holding their pose for a year as if they've sunken so closely into a relationship with the objects and environment they're in that they’ve fused. Part of this project is about how an aesthetic, symbol, myth, costume or object is tied to the identity of a person, so they need to be visually connected.

One visual strategy I’ve used to create this connection is overlapping and spills across the body and space. I can kinda go into an obsessive mode when I’m shooting because I am often managing so many things. The light (almost every image is available light), the pose (is my subject still comfortable? Is this the right pose?), and are the objects where I want them. On top of that, I am managing a 4x5 and all the equipment that goes with it. The slowness and the quality of the 4”x5” allow for the precision that I am reaching for.

Also, nothing compares to looking through a 4x5 I honestly just love magnifying objects with my loupe on the ground glass, underneath the dark cloth. It feels like magic, and helps me to see in a different way so that I can visualize what the photograph will be.

Jon Feinstein: Tell me about your use of the title "Talisman"

Knipe: Talismans are objects that connect a person to their desire. One example is a lucky charm - through wearing it, or keeping it in their pocket, a person connects to their desire for luck. If you look through this work, you will notice many such objects in the photographs. From an aesthetic standpoint alone, I find such objects and their symbols fascinating; they reveal a lot about the person using them.

In the context of this series, other objects became tangentially connected to the idea of the talisman: a beer can, a Mardi Gras throw, a 7-day candle, a tattoo. Besides having an importance that is wholly their own, they also act as a microcosm for what I am doing in my process. I think of the photographs themselves as being talismans- they’re charged with symbols, and they are vessels that connect me and the viewer to desire.

Feinstein: There's a lot of hesitation and fear around artist statements, but after reading yours, I'm interested in your meanderingly poetic approach. It works as its own story, makes me feel the pictures in new ways, and helps me get that deeper personal connection.

Knipe: I have gotten some feedback that with the writing, I am trying to do too many things, and that I need to narrow my focus. I decided I wouldn’t, and instead enlisted the help of a good editor. It felt important to share some of my personal story, some of my process, and a bit about the struggles of my community. We understand so much of the world through the narratives we make, and what we decide to share. I embraced that.

Feinstein: The colors and light feel at times subdued, at times bold and bright, but is metaphorically consistent throughout. How are you thinking and feeling about light and color as a metaphoric device?

Knipe: My choices with color are pretty intuitive- it’s something I feel rather than think about. In terms of gender, I definitely like to challenge established notions of what color we associate with who.

I’m attracted to reds and pinks- metaphorically I connect this to interiority and the body.

I often pick materials that refract and hold light in beautiful ways- such as glass, silk, faux gold, lustrous fabrics, and rhinestones. It’s a way to celebrate those I photograph- to remember them beautifully through these images.

Jeremy with Broken Goblet and Angels © Kristina Knipe

Feinstein: What's the significance of the flowers and floral arrangements that appear throughout this series?

Knipe: Flowers connect the interior to the natural world. They symbolize the specificity of time and place, the seasons, and the passage of time. I drive/bike/walk around the city and notice what is in bloom or what will be soon. Often friends will let me use plant life from their garden, or help me to collect. Sometimes I’ll drive onto the neutral ground and roll down the window and clip flowers directly into the car. It is important to me that I gather, or a given the plant life. Nothing is from a store.

I think of flowers as a symbol of death and memorial and as an expression of love. In some way all my photographs are a memorial to a time and place, and a relationship between myself and the photographed. Wisconsin Death Trip is one of my favorite books- there are some funerary arrangements constructed for the camera- also photographs of the deceased. The symbolism in objects from the victorian era fascinates me, and repeated objects in my work become a vocabulary.

Steph With Gold Stamped Foil © Kristina Knipe

Feinstein: These seem to hover between staged and found moments. Where does that sit for you in your process?

Knipe: I try to create a balance in edit of what is found and what is arranged. The distinction doesn’t seem that important to me, although it is very obvious where some photographs are on that spectrum. When I am creating one that is carefully arranged, I always pull something at random that is available to disrupt it. Once it was a dead cockroach, another time a ripped paper bag.

When I am photographing “the found,” I am also often looking at what has been carefully arranged, just not by me. I find it to be a kind of funny discussion. The photographs are about my relationship to the world, so often I have arranged something in the frame, and someone else has too.

Feinstein: How much of this is a nod to classical tableau?

Knipe: There are some aspects of the work that have a theatricality; this is my nod to tableau.

Soleil in Saint Roch Cemetery © Kristina Knipe

Feinstein: Given that New Orleans’ mythologies and associations have a big place in this work and your life, could you make these photos elsewhere?

Knipe: I think I can make these photographs elsewhere, but they would be particular to that place, insofar as the aesthetic would shift some depending on who I meet and what I find. The plantlife, objects, and spaces would change. What I am attracted to and want to bring into my life/art/process would likely be the same.

In New Orleans, there is an appreciation for the handmade in arts, culture, and costuming that I find infinitely inspiring. This feeds my work and in general my desire for existence. I have also found others that cultivate an interest in esoteric arts, and that has entered the work. There is a lot of trauma here, and with that comes a variety of healing practices, I think this shows itself in the work. I still have a lot to learn in and about New Orleans.

Feinstein: This work was all made at another time and our studio visit was back in December - months before everyone went into quarantine. Have you been able to continue photographing?

Knipe: Since the quarantine, I've been caught between the impulse to make and feelings of futility. I've wondered how photography can give us insight on this time when our nervous systems are so wracked that it is hard to be present and process events. My day-to-day has been fogged by anxiety and depression. I've photographed those I have quarantined with, but I haven't had the bandwidth to do the emotional work my art often requires.

Whitney's 29th Birthday © Kristina Knipe

Feinstein: Have these dark days given new context to your work as it relates to healing, trauma, community, talismans, etc?

It's reminded me all the more how important it is to take care of myself and those around me. Trauma impacts our ability to process and feel safe but we can learn resiliency through experience and the complex coping mechanisms we create. Also, I've felt very quiet visually and have stepped back from some of the ways I habitually express myself, but I feel I am on the brink of transformation.

Outside of my own work/process, seeing what my students have made at home with limited materials has reaffirmed the healing necessity of art. Having less materials can be severely limiting but can also allow for such creativity. Art has been helpful as a way to relate physically to a shrinking physical world limited by quarantine. It is important to try and remain embodied while we are connected tenuously through disembodied digital technologies.

Colorful Talismans for Desire and Healing: New Photographs by Kristina Knipe