Cartwheel by ISO Magazine

SPRING 2022 Cartwheel

Isabella Cook

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JORDAN TIBERIO IN CONVERSATION WITH KATIE NOBLE

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Jordan Tiberio is a photography-based artist working in Brooklyn, NY. Her work often relates to nature and florals, playfully layering the picture with texture. I had the chance to ask Jordan a couple of questions about her process and personal background shaping the imaginative worlds created in her work.

nurtured and supported this passion I had. I drew before I began taking photographs, but in my mid teens I began to use the camera to take drawing references for my art projects. It wasn’t until I discovered the website Flickr around the age of 15 that I fell in love with photography as a means of artistic expression. I’d spend hours after school taking photographs of my childhood

K : How did you start photographing? Why are you a visual artist?

best friend, and from there my mind exploded with ideas that I had never felt before with drawing. I felt like I truly found myself and my purpose in those years, and ended up attending the Fashion Institute of Technology to receive my BFA in the medium. I firmly believe if it were not for the presence of my Nana as an artist in my life, I wouldn’t be the person I am today.

J: I grew up in a suburb of Rochester, NY, the birthplace of Kodak, where both of my paternal grandparents worked up until the early 1990’s. My maternal grandmother, my Nana, was an art teacher by profession, and is still an avid painter to this day. She instilled a love of the arts inside of me from a very young age, and my parents

How has your work changed over time? Are there

new ways you are thinking about your process? J : My work has stayed pretty true to itself, and the same goes for my methods of exploring the world through photography. I approach a lot of my personal projects like self assignments, where I give myself a concept or an idea, and challenge myself to document it in a way I haven’t seen done before. I have always loved layering in photography, and like to come up with new methods to build an image inside the camera, before it even touches a hard drive or Photoshop. I want to give my viewer a reason to sit with my image, I want to get them to pause. I’ve learned to not spend an unnecessary amount of time on something that isn’t working, and that it’s okay to go back to the drawing board and try something different. I’d say learning to not get too attached, and to allow room for failure, has been the biggest growing pain of my artistic process. K: You refer to your work as “the odd in the ordinary” - what does that mean to you and how does it affect your artistic practice? The phrase “the odd in the ordinary” was actually given to me by a writer in my hometown newspaper when I was 17 years old. I had just won my first ever art award through the Scholastic Art & Writing Foundation, and that was how they described my early photography work. It has stuck with me ever since, and is my constant driving force when making new work. I like to source mundane, everyday objects, and cast them in a new light where they take on a much more important or interesting role in the photographic space. These objects range from a milk carton at the corner store, a scrap of hand painted lace fabric from the 20th century, or a piece of paper stuck to the sidewalk, deteriorating away. In our fast paced, imagery intoxicated world, I’m always asking myself the question of how do you get someone to pause? For me, it’s that odd in the ordinary. Where do you find your biggest sources of inspiration? My inspiration comes from a plethora of different places. Antique stores, flea markets, estate sales are places where I

do a lot of sourcing for old and forgotten items that often have a rebirth in my modern day photographs. I have always loved Rococo era paintings– specifically Fragonard– and spending time wandering the halls of the Museum of Metropolitan Art. Florals play a huge role in my work, so visiting the Flower District in Manhattan is a regular part of my practice, and in the Summers, visiting my hometown and being in

the gardens at my Nana’s home, where I spent a huge portion of my childhood and creating early art. I also have a large, growing collection of vernacular photography and photo albums that provide me with a fresher, less polished place to find inspiration. Ironic, I know, because of the age of the photographs, but I think there’s something fantastic to find in these forgotten memories.

ON THE STAGE

with Deanie Chen

by Cassie Ren Deanie Chen is making waves in the music industry with her photography. With clients like MAX, Interscope Records, Warner Records, Sony Music, Goldenvoice, OnestoWatch (Livenation), and 88Rising, the young photographer is balancing a life of freelance photography and studying at the NYU School of Law flawlessly. Her photographs can be seen published in People Magazine, Billboard, and Spotify. The music industry has continued to face a lack of diversity, but with figures like Chen in the mix, there is hope for all young photographers, especially those female and Asian. The live music industry specifically, which is Chen’s

expertise, is one that struggles especially with racial diversity: many of the top positions in the field lack people in underrepresented racial groups. Deanie is breaking norms within the live music industry world and she is succeeding as she does. Chen has started a trend within concert photography alike, with many looking at her long exposure photographs for inspiration. In a field that typically requires fast shutter speeds, she’s broken the mold, coming up with fresh new ideas for her photography consistently. She has successfully toured with MAX and Holly Humberstone, artists that can only be seen as a testament of her work ethic and unique perspective on the world.

MOMO TAKAHASHI Where We Call Home

In Anissa and her Dad (right), two figures stand in front of the doorway of the subject’s home. Red brick stairs in the foreground lead us towards the father-daughter-duo, concurrently creating a feeling of interiority within the outdoor space. The warm coloring of the maroon bricks, in contrast to the cooler tones in the whites of the door and its aged awning, parallel the emotions both subjects vibrate: feelings of comfortability, pride, and joy. This image works to perfectly introduce Momo Takahashi’s (b. 2000) Where We Call Home, where the JapaneseAmerican artist works to visualize how Asian Americans maintain cultural ties despite the ways these actions & practices may/have been weaponized in the other-ing of AAPI communities. Takahashi’s project beautifully underscores the importance of cultural preservation

upon migration, and the difficulties of negotiating race & ethnicity in the US in order to defy oppressive structures. The “home” in Takahashi’s project is multifaceted. As Takahashi depicts each subject in & around their homes, she begins to propose questions on where Asian bodies may freely exist in the face of western subjection. The work stands against the backdrop of the global rise in Anti-Asian hate crimes which has further politicized Asian American sense of belonging in the diaspora across the US. As this happens, public space becomes one to abstain from, leaving notions that bring us back to the “home”-the space of not only the house, but rather that of kinship, community, history, and culture– as the only place to find solace.

Family Photos II (Left)

Anissa and her dad (Right)

Ashitaka (Left) Anissa (Right)

Laurel (Left) Shrine (Right)

For Takahashi, the approach of the project mirrors its purpose in the world; she employs a collaborative praxis in imagemaking for the series, inviting her subjects to lead the imaging sessions–truly embodying the importance of imaging the variety of ways cultural connections are maintained and reimagined. This is seen in Michelle & Michelle’s Cooking (right) which illustrate the way that food serves to build bridges between the diaspora and the motherlands; food acts as a ritual, remembrance, and at times, a form of resistance. Through a different lens, Laurel’s environmental portrait visualizes a less directional understanding of cultural connections, rather imploring the nuances of texture, patterns, and media consumption. At last, each work maintains a warmth and intricate usage of bright highlights that complicate each composition’s approach to the home as a subject.

Beyond the literal, works like Shrine (previous page) exacerbate the importance of imaging in Takahashi’s work, as vernacular photography and the family archive remind us of generations prior. In this manner, the act of imaging and preserving these cultural practices, histories, and depictions of the subjects is a performance that disrupts erasure, providing a place for future generations to look back to. Her work expands on one’s understanding of how AAPI communities Emily and Minh (Left)

respond to marginalization and retain cultural identity. Moreover, she disrupts narratives that attempt to minimize the relationships between immigrants and their descendants, as belonging and home are negotiated beyond the physical confinements of land and governance. Growing up in the diaspora one is left feeling with no true grasp of cultural identity as both the motherland and present home reject the third-cultureindividuals’ failure to seamlessly integrate within monocultural spaces without refined code-switching. Takahashi’s Where We Call Home vibrantly illustrates the performances undertaken to maintain ties to cultural identities. Her understanding of the image as an artist's tool for political inquiry is coupled with cohesive color palettes, intricate compositions, and attention to light which exemplifies the role of care & kinship in our individual development of the self. In light of the politics imposed on Asian American senses of belonging, the images remind us of the importance of turning back to community, and aid in the preservation and reproduction of our likeness as a means of resistance to its subjection and erasure. As Takahashi’s work engages with the third culture experiences of Asian Americans, it expands understandings of Asian-American identities and rejects attempts at oversimplification employed in attempts to delegitimize cultural belongings in and of the diaspora.

Michelle’s Cooking (Right)

by Carlos Hernandez

Michelle

Roseanne

Alvine Road Shaun Pierson by Owen Caldwell

The young American subjects of Shaun Pierson’s Alvine Road make the most of an aged, Reagan-era, rural landscape, whose physical features and ideologies are obscured by an expressive new generation. TVs, plastics, and other items belonging to the 21st century are displayed on or alongside old wooden furnishings, oil lamps, pictures of old barns, dated linens and wallpapers. New objects appear as an invasion of old spaces, like the TV in House on Fire, placed in the middle of an old suburban foyer whose walls show signs of age, decorated with velvet curtains, a taxidermy and an analog clock. The subject, an elderly woman whose dated hairstyle and clothing create a link between her and the space, stands in awe of the intrusive flatscreen. The house fire in addition acts as a symbol of generational decay; like the death and rebirth of a phoenix, the fading older generation will make room for the cultural movements of the next. Through Pierson’s documentation of the subjects and the items they possess, a conversation about identity and belonging emerges. Subjects in Granny in Mirror and Sorry Mom directly confront their position in this aesthetic landscape. With one hand to her face, the “Granny” in Granny in Mirror contemplates her features in some negative awe, acknowledging suddenly her place in time, as if to say “how did I get here?”, caught off-guard in the illusive standstill of her environment. Standing in front of a mirror staring at her complexion, the implications of age –death, losing touch, becomes an undeniable reality. Sorry Mom shows vandalism, vulgarity, and drug-use in Curtis Portrait (Left)

protest of an older authoritative generation. Two teenagers occupy the space center-frame, their uncaring, hostile gaze further confirms both a need for independence, and their rejection of the ideals or practices of the older authority. Ignorance and bitterness between the old and the young seem to drive the conflict of the series, which reflects a very real political phenomenon. I think of Nancy Reagan’s thenpopular ‘Just Say No’ anti-drug campaign, and Millennial and Gen Z’s widespread embrace of cannabis–among other drugs–whose reputation was tarnished by the Reagan administration. Photos like Before the Storm, Granny in Mirror, and House on Fire contain their own cinematic dramas, wherein figures are frozen in suspense, surrounded by narrative clues and strange abnormalities, prompting the viewer to become a detective of their own imagination. The subject of Before the Storm stands in a bright open foreground contrasted by an ominous forest and rolling dark clouds. She gazes, possibly in awe of the storm and the implication of danger. The clouds looming over the dark forest, and the depth of the image give a tense feeling of motion, as if the storm is approaching the foreground. Because their facial expression is obscured, the viewer is left wondering about the condition of the subject, and the before-and-after of the captured moment. Alvine Road illuminates a bygone era through the intimate drama and portraiture of life staged in a neglected, conflicted, rural America ladscape. Though messy and occasionally disturbing –as many revolutions are, It is the cyclical passing of one generation to the next; a cartwheel.

Before the Storm

Sorry Mom (Left) House on Fire (Right)

Aidan & Levi on the Couch (Left) Aidan on Bed with Arm (Middle) Mom in Bed (Right)

Granny in Mirror

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D A o ke

Regard It Like A Dove is a medium-format photography, digital sculpture and written word hybrid constructed like a quilt, stitching together and layering time, memory, and medium. The series presents black and white mediumformat photographs made on my grandfather’s Rolleiflex, and combines them with digital sculptures modeled in 3D rendering software. The photographs depict languid, natural scenes spliced out of Central Park, which holds innumerable memories for the millions of visitors that have traipsed its grounds over time. The photographs come without context or action, records of a time and place, without extraneous information or overbearing perspective, and so, act like stages upon which the digital sculptures and written words can “perform,” interacting with the environment around them, an environment (both spatial and temporal) they have never and will never exist in. The pieces fuse together the past, present and future (as the three components were made at

Dawson Batchelder

different times) with the pictorial x, y and z axes of the scene, interjecting figures and stories that never existed. Contrasting these more conceptual elements, an embellished piece of writing describes the emotional experience of contending with memories and narratives of the self, both those that are welcome and unwelcome, ruminating on the habit of construction and obsession, and the importance of accepting both internal and external circumstances. The three mediums both interact with and contrast each other, creating a dialogue between historical and contemporary practices. Furthermore, they interject and interrupt one another, weaving a warbling and wiley tale that seems to constantly add layers on top of itself, interpreting and reinterpreting, disrupting while simultaneously synthesizing narratives that never occurred.

A Great Blimp Bound and Buoyant Emerges from the Shadows

One Path Spanning Wide as Space (Left) We Tried Wrangling this Warbling and Mangled Beast for a Year or More (Right)

Untitled (Left) A Low Humming Runs Through Calico Fields (Right)

Three Trees Standing Tall as Time (Left) An Aged Babe Sees the Shining Sun Above (Right)

B RCI MI M I BYRC I M I O I BYRC I M MO I BYR C I I MO I B Y R C M I MOI B YR I M I MO I B Y CI M IMO I B R C I MI M O I Y R C I M I MO Y M R I C B I M I Y B M R I C I

ISABELLE BEAUCHAMP

BIOMIMICRY

BY BELLE MBAEZUE With a carefully curated color palette and textured integration, Isabelle Beauchamp simulates a dimensioned interaction between technology and organic life forms. Beauchamp applies cool tones over warm pinks and purples, constructing a crisp overlay that pleases the eye. She achieves realism using 3D modeling that enhances the technological impact of Biomimicry. It features intricate levels of detail, even when you zoom in you see the way the colors interact on the page. It emulates the complicated relationship between sustainability and industrialization. Each piece has a mystifying meshwork of colors beautifully emphasized by the black background. It is lushness versus desolation, manufacture versus creation. Beauchamp infuses a seemingly terrifying reality with an optimistic vision for the future. The climate crisis levies on all individuals, regardless of central involvement or peripheral involvement, which is why it is a topic of great concern and imminence. Human beings have altered the Earth’s atmosphere by the use of fossil fuels, but it took 10 years after this initial diagnosis in 1979 to take action. Despite the delay, political parties are continuously joining forces in light of the way that the crisis affects a greater constituency: the

human race. Questions remain on whether this unification, this refusal of polarizing bodies, can be achieved again? Instead of taking the nihilistic approach, Beauchamp chooses a more inventive, utopian path. She blurs the lines between the earth’s tragic declination due to climate change and the restoration of the planet, implementing technology as both bane and blessing. Beauchamp began using 3D during the pandemic, drawn to its limitless nature while being suspended in COVID’s liminality. She delves into her world of creativity through maximalism: layering patterns, saturating colors, and aestheticizing excess. It is often assumed that what makes an artist great is their exposure to darkness, their ability to relay the tragedies of the world through a medium of choice. To Beauchamp, this is a myth: that of tortured artist. She laments the assumption that to be beautiful, art must stem from the lack of beauty, stating that her best art comes when she is in a healthy state of mind. Like the mind, earth’s greatest beauty is when it, and its inhabitants, replace a bad idea with a better one.

by Abbigail Hong

“I never felt His presence in my life Not even in a dream Mom told me I will find Him soon Dad said to pray harder But that was in high school And the person I was then Is not the same person now I don’t think I believe anymore... Despite that, Am I really God’s child?”

Pastors’ kids have become an example of the church, a representative of being a ‘good Christian’. These pressures from the church have either negatively or positively impacted these individuals’ relationships with culture, identity, religion, community, and more. These experiences have shaped and formed these individuals’ morals, ideals, and opinions on the world and its society. All of God’s Children is a photo series that documents the Korean American Christian community, concentrating on how the community has impacted the lives of pastors’ children. The project explores the themes of identity, culture, religion, and other intimate topics through the depiction and the relationships between the subjects and their environment. This series is a reflection on the intimacy of religion and how communities form through these ties. Subjects of this project answer questions regarding experiences with the church, their current relationship with Christ, expectations from the community, and etc. The

subjects purposely wear their interpretation of ‘Sunday’s Best’ to reinforce the theme of the church. The portraits of the project correspond to the written prayer letter of the subjects. Prayers are a sacred practice for many Christians, thus the audience is given the opportunity to read these private messages, exposing the subjects’ personal journey with Christ, struggles with life, or seeking comfort and safety with the practice itself. The accompanying text and audio offer insight into the subjects’ personal messages to God, revealing the private relationship between the subject and religion to the audience. The images are taken in various spaces, such as church interiors, homes of the subjects, and religious sites. The spotlight illuminates each subject, becoming a visual and physical representation that highlights the various facets of these communities that contribute to undeniable societal pressures. The elements help enhance the overall message of the connection of the subjects who are a part of the Korean American Christian community.

The Gallery Ethan Barrett Somalia Bryant Audrey Cibel Carlos Hernandez Kushi Jain Lamar Kendrick-Dial Andreas Lemus Jo Lieber Pilar Alejandra Paradiso Maddie Provost Maximilian Ruibal Tony Wang

Tony Wang

19 I have control. The switching emotions Rolling around Inside my brain. Nature Valley Granola bar crumbs In the cup holders of Mom’s Honda Odyssey minivan. But I am in control. Life path chosen By my preexistence. The peeling back vinyl Of the CD case Over the movie Played one too many Times before. I am controlled. Polly Pocket sunglasses Stuck in between Wooden floors Warped from Five-year-old floods. by Pilar Alejandra Paradiso

Andreas Lemus

Jo Lieber

Lamar Kendrick-Dial

The Gymnastics of Melpomene Careful Phaethon Ambition is golden Red and restless a Tragedy sun-soaked Welcome to the feast Here sit with Ovid Eat and love and fall

Envy and die and live Listen to Icarus burn

Kushi Jain

Somalia Bryant

Audrey Cibel

Lamar Kendrick-Dial

Do we need these exits and fathoms of up and up and up Are they helpful - are they, easy? What is it to pretend? It is not difficult, you pretend everyday Hand in hand you pretend, coffee meets coffee eyes you pretend I know you do not pretend here, here in your house, Here where the windows are closed. But when does pretend begin again? When you open the door? When you wake up? Pretend is only pretend when you are pretending if you cannot tell where pretend ends, you cannot tell. You cannot tell. Do I pretend? I must pretend. Maybe in the kitchen, maybe at the party. Maybe pretend is harmless, maybe it is evil. Pretend can be a game, but brutal games are not too fun for me Maybe my pretend ends in the middle of the game when I catch you and your pretend on the sidewalk, though it might as well be a microphone.

Again and again Tessa Ehrlich

Lamar Kendrick-Dial

Ethan Barret

Maddie Provost

Forgive us fathers for we have sinned Kushi Jain We cartwheeled into tomorrows No hands and feet Pink gums all over the walls Just tongue and teeth Words taped to the quiet And oceans beneath Screaming and dancing And missing the beat Baptised in morals A religion so sweet We specimens of Jesus Throw up and then eat And sell our dead skins And bones and meat But blessed cunnilingus We pray and repeat Answer questions with questions And burn in the heat

Carlos Hernandez

Maximilian Ruibal

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Carlos Hernandez

SPECIAL THANKS: Kalila Abdur-Razzaq Tom Beaver Edgar Castillo Jordan Cruz Niki Kekos Marisa Mariano Lorie Novak Adam Ryder Jacob Watkins Caroline Wolfe Papocchia Deborah Willis, Ph.D., Chair of NYU Tisch, DPI Allyson Green, Dean of NYU Tisch

SENIOR EDITOR: Cassie Ren HEAD LAYOUT DESIGNERS: Savannah Faith Jackson Lamar Kendrick-Dial Nina Osoria Ahmadi DESIGN: Victoria Liu Jarod Polakoff

GALLERY CONTRIBUTORS: Ethan Barrett Somallia Bryant Audrey Cibel Carlos Hernandez

EDITORIAL: Owen Caldwell Belle Mbaezue Katie Noble

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Lamar Kendrick-Dial 65, 69, Jo Lieber Maddie Provost Maximillian Ruibal Tony Wang

PHOTO EDITORS: Shea Baasch Tessa Ehrlich Renee Hayes Anna Henderson Andreas Lemus Zoe Morris Dora Nano Ariana Perez Maddie Provost Ryan Rogers

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FEATURED ARTISTS: INSTAGRAM: Jordan Tiberio @jordantiberio Deanie Chen @deaniechen Momo Takahashi @momotakahashii Shaun Pierson @shaun_pierson Dawson Batchelder @dawsonbatchelder Isabelle Beauchamp @babyfaced89

FACULTY ADVISOR: Editha Mesina

FEATURED WRITERS: Tessa Ehrlich Kushi Jain Pilar Alejandra Paradiso

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GENEROUS SUPPORT FROM: Tisch Profunds: The Office of the Dean and the Tisch Undergraduate Student Council Tisch Undergraduate Student Council The Department of Photography and Imaging Printed at UNIQUE PRINT NY Edition of 220

Back Cover: Jarod Polakoff