THE TALE AND THE TONGUE. How can a form be a holder for intentions and ideas – Crystal Z Campbell
HOW CAN A FORM BE A HOLDER FOR INTENTIONS AND IDEAS is episode eighteen, following a conversation with multidisciplinary artist, experimental filmmaker, and writer Crystal Z Campbell. While form is one of the meaning-making elements in art, it can be often overlooked. Crystal Z Campbell, who furthermore refers to attention as a form of care, shaped formal relevance from a question: how can a form be a holder, a vessel, for intentions and ideas? In Crystal's work, which combines the specifics of historical events with the abstraction of artistic gestures and the serendipity of processes, form can be felt in many ways. Crystal's films are temporary places to enter and engage in a sensory relationship with the stories they make present. The witnessing relationship is also central to Crystal Z Campbell's work. Looking is not only a biological process, but also a historical one. They wonder in a public conversation: “How do we look at things we can't see?” Following Crystal's words, "looking should not be easy". Precisely when things are easy, our attention remains strategically distracted elsewhere, looking without seeing what is in front of us. The conversation with Crystal Z Campbell took place and words in November 2023. They were in Saint Louis, Oklahoma and Sonia Fernández Pan, the host of this podcast series, was in Berlin. Another thing Crystal mentioned in their conversation: the situation of indirect witness towards so many materials, events, and situations, the acts of omission, the gaps in the narratives. There are still many gaps in the official narratives, but also in our professional stories.