ARTS

Picturing Nashville: Philip Holsinger’s immersive multimedia portrait of Nashville debuts at Chauvet Arts

BY JOE NOLAN

There are so many elements to be considered when creating a portrait: Who is the subject? What is the medium? What about the pose and lighting? What will they wear? What’s the perfect setting? But what if you wanted to create a portrait of an entire city? What would that require? Photojournalist Philip Holsinger has spent his last five years in Nashville attempting to capture the spirit of the city utilizing a combination of media including photography, video, audio, journal entries and more.

The result is We Art Nashville: Act One, an immersive display at Chauvet Arts. The project is the brainchild of late local philanthropist Ben Rechter along with fellow We Are Nashville producers Kerry Graham and Don Transeth. The trio hired Holsinger and gave him full creative license along with the caveat: “Tell the truth.” The project also includes multiple art installations around town — The Contributor has also published portions of the We Are Nashville collection.

“When we got down to the philosophy of what we were attempting to do, we are reminding people to love their neighbor. But you can’t love somebody that you don’t know,” says Holsinger, “So I assigned myself the framework of making a family portrait of a family that had gotten so big that it didn’t even know its cousins anymore.”

There is no doubt that Nashville’s family has been growing. When I moved here from Detroit in 1992, Nashville’s population was just over 600,000. Three decades later and that same number has more than doubled to a whopping 1,294,000. Looking at these two numbers explains a lot about our local housing crisis, our traffic problems and our restaurant wait times. But, Holsinger’s project tries to get at something more subtle, making connections across class distinctions, neighborhood boundaries, and language barriers to find a clear focus on the big picture that we’re all a part of.

Most of the show is made up of Holsinger’s black and white images. Chauvet’s curatorial team made some smart choices to display the works in an all-over salon style arrangement versus the more formal presentation along a single center line that we normally see in a gallery show. Holsinger also opted to present his works in mismatched vintage frames. These choices result in a show that feels more homey and casual than most gallery displays, and it creates a kind of democratic presentation where no one image is highlighted over another. The images feature a pretty dark-haired dancer celebrating the Kurdish New Year at a Newroz gathering, a boxer standing over a fallen opponent, musicians on stage, patrons digging into Nashville’s signature dish photographed through the front window of Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack. Holsinger makes some interesting framing choices, cutting off one subject at the chin to emphasize the American flag hanging in his hands. He does the same with his boxer photo — the winning fighter’s physique and swaggering stance tell us everything we need to know without seeing the expression on his face.

In addition to the photos, other highlights here are four of Holsinger’s short films. “My Name is Erick” is a profile of a former gang enforcer known as “Big E” that tells a redemption story about finding purpose in the everyday and friendships in unexpected faces. “Soccer Mom” is another story about a family broken by crime and neglect, and the path that brought them back together for a second chance. These films mostly frame their subjects in their own words and it really feels like we get to see them through their own eyes in the process.

We Are Nashville: Act One runs through July