Community + Connection: A Chat with GP

FELIX: Tell me about the photo series you’ve created for this issue.

GP: My series, Pillars, showcases my love and care for all the people in my life, including my family and friends. I was finding my artistic identity on my most recent trip to Japan, and I found an art book titled The Annihilation of Space and Time by @zerofeedback about how to reconstruct yourself from the ground up and understand why you make art. I boiled myself down to how much I love my community and how much I thrive on connecting with people. 

My photo series is inspired by David Hockney, who joins all of these images together. Basically, if you were to take one frame of the image and have it framed in one tight area, but then have a collage of the entire space. It's still one picture but constructed very differently, and I thought that was sick. 

An example of Hockney’s work, “Joiners”, which was used as a reference for GP’s project.

FELIX: What inspires you to capture a shot or moment through your camera?

GP: I've heard from some people in digital media, specifically photo and video, that our medium has a different artistic weight than a painting or an art piece molded by hand because it's a digital artifact. It’s something that's created in a very modern age. I feel very strongly about photography as the modern way of immortalizing something. 

It could be one of the most important moments in someone's life when a baby is born and you're capturing the reaction of the father. Being able to look back at a moment and be like, Okay, this is what I was thinking at that time. This is what I was reflecting on. This moment will never leave me because I took this photo/video.

FELIX: What is one takeaway you hope people will get from your photo series?

GP: I hope that people [become] more appreciative of their surroundings and reflect on people's impact on you, regardless of how much time they spend with you. Whether it's your parents who you've been with your whole life, or a recent friend that you made within the past half year. 

I think the level of closeness that you have with someone isn't mutually exclusive to the time they've been in proximity with you.

I also really hope that people understand that it's okay to be very human and community-oriented and to rely on people. Even though trust can be tampered with and you may have been betrayed, taking on that risk is the most human experience that you could ever endure. 

There has to be a balance, you know, when it comes to relying on people and also relying on yourself. It’s being able to be vulnerable, but also having the strength to to keep it there, you know, to not be hurt by anything that comes your way, to not be hurt by anyone attacking that vulnerability. 

Below are some captures from GP’s final project.

FELIX: If you could relive any day of your life, what day, which day would you choose? 

GP: Oh, like, from start to finish, kind of ordeal?

FELIX: Yes, we'll do start to finish. 

GP: And this is the entire span of my life?

FELIX: Yeah, we'll do the entire span of your life. 

GP: I'm bombarded with choices. This might be a little bit of recency bias, but I would like to relive the day that I hosted my art gallery back in June of this year. I went through the day entirely in work mode, and I was just hoping everything was going well as head coordinator of the entire space.

I was expecting a maximum of 100 people, and 170 people showed up that day, and it was insane. I tried to keep my head low and didn't appreciate everything as much as I wanted to in real-time. Obviously, I got to reflect on everything afterward and think about the impact that I made that day. I couldn't accept any congratulations at that moment, because I kept thinking the job was not finished. I'm thinking specifically about that clip of Kobe Bryant when he was doing his post-game conference, and he's like, “What's there to be happy about? The job’s not done.” 

I’m so proud of everyone who helped me coordinate, everyone on my team, from those in charge of sound to the live performances to the vendors–it was just a beautiful day. That was all about community. That day also really helped me boil down my artistic identity.

FELIX: Is there anything else you'd like to share about yourself and your photo series?

GP: The location of this project is really important. It's going to be photographed in my grandmother's home, where, basically, she raised two generations of children and is also the last grandparent that I still have with me physically. I wanted to shoot in that location in particular because it was a place that I couldn't appreciate enough in my time as a child. Now that I'm older, I wanted this project to be in a place where I had so much love and care placed on me.

You can see GP’s full final project by purchasing 03: The Identity Issue.