Most interviews are done by phone or such like, and the interviewee has little time to think in-depth about each question. I chose to interview Eliot Dudik by e-mail, over a number of weeks, giving him the time to offer us some considered thoughts about his acclaimed project ‘Broken Land' and what informs his vision.
Battle of Chickamauga, Georgia
In 2012, Eliot was named one of PDN’s 30 New and Emerging Photographers to Watch and one of Oxford American Magazine’s 100 New Superstars of Southern Art.
In preparation for my interview with photographer Eliot Dudik, I reread Abraham Lincoln’s ‘House Divided Speech’. Here’s a small excerpt; "A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided."
The speech, given a few years before Lincoln became President, was a prophetic warning that all was not well in his world. Of the speech, he later said; "I wanted to use some ... simple language... that it may strike home to the minds of men in order to rouse them to the peril of the times." I look now at the divisions and stresses we face in our own world; political partisanship, religious intolerance, radicalised faiths, widening gaps between rich and poor, broken economies, mega corporations and changing balances of global powers.
Battle of Bulls Gap, Tennessee
What does any of this have to do with Eliot Dudik's landscape photography? Well, a lot. Eliot’s project, ‘Broken Land’ is a gentle reminder, that growing divisions, if not carefully resolved, can lead to horrific and devastating consequences. Eliot has photographed very specific places, each an event location of the American Civil War.They were once, and again currently are, peaceful and beautiful landscapes. And yet, each location was at one time the site of great human tragedy and conflict. Eliot’s work is a reminder of histories tendency to repeat it self, and for us not to take for granted, what we have. Be warned.
Steve Coleman: Eliot, this is an extraordinary project. It feels very personal. Where, within you, has this project come from?
Eliot Dudik: Thank you for inviting me to correspond with you, Steve. I very much enjoy your writings, and it is quite an honour to respond to your perceptions. You're right, Broken Land is very personal, but I also feel, like many major contemporary issues, if others don't begin to find how it affects them personally, we are destined for failure. This project, Broken Land, is for me about deep divides in contemporary politics and the culture that feeds them in the United States. I am using lands brutalized by the American Civil War as a way to compare our current political dysfunction to that which led up to the most devastating period in our short history.
Over the past decade or so I've become increasingly disgusted with the two party governmental system we have in the United States, where it seems everything must be mulishly defended or obstructed, even issues that have no business being fought over in the 21st century including equality and basic human rights, among a magnitude of others. One party is much more interested in creating gridlock to foil the other party than it is in progressing in any positive manner for this country.
The theatrics of politics, fueled by media outlets, and consumed by the public is coming to a boiling point in my view. I see it much like a continual sporting event where a team is picked and consumers become committed fans of one side or the other. One's team must win every engagement at all costs, and the players are being paid to make their fans proud. While the steadfast blockading and lack of communication is persisting in our government, our country is slowly losing the security and comforts it once enjoyed.
Eliot’s project, ‘Broken Land’ is a gentle reminder, that growing divisions, if not carefully resolved, can lead to horrific and devastating consequences.
The United States are hardly united, the system is broken. I am personally driven to help make change, and I felt the need at home. I hope someday the juvenile bickering will come to a head, and we as a country can focus on something substantial like global climate change. Of course, we must, as a country, acknowledge that it exists first.
Battle of Secessionville, South Carolina
SC: Eliot, I am immediately reminded of, and struck, by the depth, scope and reach which landscape photography can offer us beyond simply the recording of a pretty picture. I am also struck by how important the sensitivity, knowledge and experience of the photographer needs to be, in order that a photograph can be imbued with such meaning.
My perception is that you have made a huge investment in yourself as a person to bring you to this point where you can now do this work; you appear to have a genuine and active interest in people and society, and you have a Bachelor of Science in Anthropology and a Bachelor of Art in Art History as well as a Masters of Fine Art. The depth of your work is a reflection of the depth of who you are as a person.
How important is such an investment, in yourself, to being a photographer? (and I ask this question as a helpful insight for all photographers, that the pathway to improving your photography might not lie in shiny new equipment, software or more megapixels, but rather in who you are as a person and how you learn to use that to inform your photography.)
Battle of Balls Bluff, Virginia
ED: Certainly, an investment in yourself and the world around you is critical to making work that resonates with others. You sum it up well when you say "The depth of your work is a reflection of the depth of who you are as a person." Unquestionably, it is very difficult to find a voice within art photography, and if one's goal is to break into that conversation, then there are a number of things that are vital to the undertaking.
First, I think you have to be an interesting person to make interesting photographs. That sounds elitist, but it's not intended to be. I think an interesting person is one filled with curiosity, passion, a thirst for wonder, a need to experiment, a need to discover. These things might come naturally, from good parenting, or can be finessed through practice, but to be an artist of any sort, I would recommend starting there.
An understanding of the history of art (including contemporary art) in general and photography in particular is also essential to understanding where you as an artist fit into the ongoing conversation. Lastly, I believe one must feel an intense need to communicate through art, to constantly seek new ways of expressing oneself, and to be open to, almost encouraging of, failure. I believe we are often on the brink of failure when success reveals itself.
Battle of Harpers Ferry, West Virginia
As for my investment, I was fortunate enough to know I wanted to be a photographer as I was entering my undergraduate studies, yet I also knew I was young and very possibly naive as to the potential of my becoming such. I began college as a studio art major with a concentration in photography, taking quite a few art and art history courses. I built a darkroom in my apartment after my first semester of photography.
As the number of photography classes I could take began to diminish, I decided to transfer out of the program and instead work toward degrees in Art History and Anthropology. I thought these programs might infuse my photographic work with something more, and at the same time possibly give me some other options if photographing for a living didn't work out. I think the fear of it not working out has driven me through much of my career.
I believe one must feel an intense need to communicate through art, to constantly seek new ways of expressing oneself, and to be open to, almost encouraging of, failure. I believe we are often on the brink of failure when success reveals itself.
While in school, I worked at a local camera shop and a boutique cigar shop. Ultimately, the cigar shop and the martini bar upstairs were much more influential on me and my work; I stayed there for 5 years. At the same time, I worked full-time at a photography gallery producing exhibitions. I never stopped photographing. Importantly, I was very lucky to have photography professors (Art History and Anthropology professors too) who were interested and met with me many times outside of school to discuss what I was doing. After a couple more years at the gallery and cigar shop, I applied to graduate school and haven't stopped running since. I guess I willed it to happen, through hard work and determination. Maybe I always knew I didn't really have a back-up plan. Maybe I just never needed one. I don't know. But I certainly had and still have the passion, curiosity, and need to discover.
SC: I’m interested in the relationship you have with the landscape and where the landscape fits in your own evolution as a photographer. Is it, from the landscape, that your interests in history, people, politics and society have flowed? Or have your interests lead you back to the land?
ED: I use the landscape in nearly all my work to convey subtle understandings of the world we inhabit. Even when making portraits, the land that appears, whether a sizeable portion of the frame or not, is significant to the photograph. I believe this deep connection to the landscape is rooted in my upbringing on a sheep farm in central Pennsylvania.
Battle of Boonsboro, Maryland
I spent every day, and many nights, in the fields working. If work had been completed, then we played outside. I didn't realize it until I was a little older, but this experience had a profound effect on me. Now, working with photography to express ideas, I find the landscape as my primary source of inspiration and the subject that allows me to communicate most clearly. As long as I've been taking photographs, the landscape has always been there.
The first photographs I ever made were in Wyoming on a trip with my siblings and Grandmother. I borrowed my Mother's little point-n-shoot and shot, I don't know, about 20-30 rolls of 35mm photographs, all landscapes. Shortly after, I bought my first camera, and was never without it. Mostly I photographed the landscape my friends and I were hiking or canoeing through, mixed with some portraits of them, but none of it was very good. In Charleston, South Carolina, while working on my undergraduate degree, I mostly traveled to an uninhabited island by boat to camp and photograph.
I continued to photograph, almost exclusively, the landscape until I went to graduate school, where everything I knew was thankfully turned upside down (literally and figuratively) and rebuilt from scratch. As for your last question, it is really a combination of the two. Often I am first intrigued by the landscape that then leads me to the culture and history that inhabit it. The series Road Ends in Water is a good example of this.
Other times, I find myself interested in a particular culture, history, or one of many political issues and fall back on the landscape as a way to open a dialog.
SC: Does any one or two 'Broken Land' photographs express or hold a particular meaning for you? I would love you to share your feeling and thoughts about a few particular photographs.
ED: The photograph of Antietam, Maryland that I often use to open the project has been one of my favorites. I had visited the battlefield when I was a teenager biking across Maryland along the C&O Canal, which is when I learned the battle of Antietam was the bloodiest single day in United States history totaling 22,700 casualties. It’s difficult to understand what that means, but standing in that landscape was then and is now certainly a disturbing experience.
Battle of Antietam, Maryland
On the day this photograph was made I had a difficult time finding a composition that expressed the heavy feeling that hangs over it. After making a photograph down near Burnside’s Bridge that I wasn’t thrilled about, I packed up to leave. As I was driving out I came across the landscape that I now use to represent Antietam, which for me encourages an appropriate response.
SC: A personal favorite of mine, is the ‘Battle of Allatoona Pass, Georgia’. Looking at this photograph, I feel very uneasy. I have a real sense of apprehension and doom, as if a brigade of soldiers is imminent and death awaits. It’s rather spooky, despite it's current tranquility. How did you feel, standing in places where so many lost their lives?
ED: Yes, Allatoona Pass is particularly haunting. I met a guy there who was walking his dog, and through him and the posted signs I was able to imagine a pretty dreadful scene. There were two fortifications on either side of the pass, originally built by the Confederates, but captured and reinforced by the Union. There was actually a wooden plank across the pass that joined the two defenses. This battle was an attempt by the Confederates to retake the pass to no avail. It was a bloody battle with a high percentage of casualties on both sides, but standing in the pass below the ridges on either side, I couldn’t help but feel an awful dread for the Confederates who were trying to take the fortified hills.
Battle of Allatoona Pass, Georgia
This feeling is intense and typical for most places of battle I visited. As I stand in the landscapes, I can’t help but envision the movements of men and the death that ensued. I try to create photographs that allow others’ imaginations to project the image of war on landscapes that could be their back yard.
SC: 'Broken Land' has such a deep fusion of vision and values at its core. This must give you a wonderful platform from which to speak about your work and share your disquiet about our world. How important is it for you to have such deep foundations in a project?
And, as we are all subject to economic necessity, does such depth help you to promote your work? (and again, I ask this latter question, to help those photographers who are considering their next project, as a reminder that there are many benefits to be gained when a project has a deep and genuine reason for being.)
ED: Artistic pursuits in general provide an excellent platform for communicating what’s most important to the artist; I don’t think we should waste our time on anything that isn’t fundamentally important to us. That being said, not all of the work I do is as heavy as Broken Land. Much of what I do is about an exploration to help me understand how I feel about something.
As I stand in the landscapes, I can’t help but envision the movements of men and the death that ensued. I try to create photographs that allow others’ imaginations to project the image of war on landscapes that could be their back yard.
As for promoting one’s artwork: it is absolutely a substantial part of being an artist, but I also believe good work will be found. And I think good work starts with a need for that work to be made. Creating artwork that resonates with a variety of somewhat disparate audiences certainly helps the work to gain traction, but I wasn't thinking about that effect when I began the project.
Battle of Aiken, South Carolina
I was most interested in the idea of war, our current cultural and political standings that have been shoved down our collective throats and seem to be leading toward inevitable disaster. The benefits from interest in the work came later.
SC: At a functional level, I would be interested to know how much work and planning goes into a project like 'Broken Land’. (When did you start, how much research is involved, how many locations do you visit each year, what are some of the logistics for capturing each image and when will the project finish.) Can you share with us, some insights to how much work is involved in a project like this.
ED: I like to think that I’ve been working on this project, or any project for that matter, my whole life, although I began photographing for Broken Land in late 2012. I think about history a lot, and am often fascinated by how different my life or actions might be if one small thing happened differently in my past. This work grows out of who I have become.
I can safely say I haven’t stopped working since I began the Broken Land project, but that’s not solely the fault of this series. Of course, countless hours are spent with ongoing research. It really needs to be a way of life. I would estimate I’ve visited 30-40 battlefields per year since I’ve started. I don’t always make a photograph at each site, and I try to make only one when I do. Most of my time now is spent in postproduction: scanning and re-combining the negatives digitally.
Bull Run, Virginia
I have quite a lot of film I’m still trying to move through the scanner, including film for other projects I’ve been working on simultaneously. This past December I photographed a number of battlefields in the western and mid-western United States that most folks don’t realize played a part in the American Civil War. I’m planning to wrap up Broken Land with a few battlefields in North Dakota this summer.
SC: Thank you for your time Eliot. For those readers who would like to explore this project in more depth, where is the best place for them to view and learn more about ‘Broken Land’? And do you have a book available?
Battle of Chancellorsville, Virginia
ED: My pleasure, Steve! The best place to go to learn more about the project and see some of my other work is my website: www.eliotdudik.com. Broken Land is not yet available as a book. There are still a few more sites I want to photograph before I wrap up the project, and I’m still working through a lot of film I have already exposed. I hope to have everything complete by the end of 2015, at which time I will be looking to publish the series along with the Still Lives photographs. My earlier book, Road Ends in Water, is available on my website.
All photographs © Copyright 2015 Eliot Dudik
Eliot Dudik is a photographic artist, educator, and bookmaker exploring the connection between culture, landscape, memory, and politics. His first monograph, ROAD ENDS IN WATER, was published in 2010. In 2012, Dudik was named one of PDN’s 30 New and Emerging Photographers to Watch and one of Oxford American Magazine’s 100 New Superstars of Southern Art. He was awarded the PhotoNOLA Review Prize in 2014 for his Broken Land and Still Lives portfolio. His photographs have been exhibited in cities across the United States including, Los Angeles, New York City, Washington DC, San Francisco, Houston, and Baltimore. Eliot taught photography at the University of South Carolina from 2011 to 2014 and is currently building the photography program within the Department of Art and Art History at the College of William & Mary. He is also directing the Andrews Gallery at the college.
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