Classic France is a country of nuance with a love of conversation and freedom and an aversion to fanaticism. Contemporary Houellebecq describes France as a museum, where landscape turns into decor and where rural areas are emptying out.
For the Escarrias-petite sisters of African descent born ten months apart in Cali, Colombia-commercial photography was in their family DNA. Their parents established a studio in their hometown that was overseen by their mother after their father's early demise. The siblings learned the family trade, and when they fled the country's civil war in 1958, they quickly reestablished the studio in Buenos Aires.
Regina Silveira has spent the better part of three decades considering the relationship between media and meaning, particularly as it relates to Latin America. First presented in 1997, "To Be Continued..." features 100 black-and-white reproductions of photos, newspaper clippings, propaganda, advertisements, and more. Silveira nests each image into an oversized puzzle piece, which cuts off faces and scenes to leave fragments of pop culture icons, flora and fauna, and even the occasional mugshot spliced next to one another.
She wrote 10 books while she was here, and that includes children's books, you know, volumes of poetry. It was a busy and bustling place back then. Lucille and her husband, Fred Clifton, had six kids running around. Neighbors were in and out. Artist friends were over constantly. But Lucille Clifton managed to carve out time and space to write.
In addition to writing fiction, you're a staff writer for the and a screenwriter. How do you think of your career? I think of myself as a storyteller. I'm nosy, so once I'm telling a story, I want to know what happens. I do find, with fiction, I can't toggle in and out of it. It's like acting, where you have to stay with that character, in that world.