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CH: As someone who works in both words and images, what do you find beneficial and restrictive in each? Do you find one medium to be more powerful?
BL: Photographs offer a starting point. Assuming the image isn't significantly altered, the people and objects within appear as they appeared in that instant. That specificity is important. More often than not the details differ from how the photographer and others there remember the moment. Of course the photographer chooses the moment and frames the image by deciding what stays and what gets cut. The lack of context, especially limited peripheral vision, is a boundary of photography. Photos force us to look forward with little regard to what's happening on the side or behind us. I don't see either genre more or less powerful. They're different, and we need awareness of these differences. Both visual art and words are texts that we read. It's up to us to read them as best we can.
CH: I like this idea of visual art as a text that we read. But how do we, the general public, learn to read images of war? Is there a "correct" way of reading them, and what lessons should we take from them?
BL: I think approaching art without assumptions offers a good starting point. With war, as with many subjects, there's a flood of noise-media reports, government accounts, opinions, rumors, stories, history-and we need to navigate those to develop our own perspectives. Many of these voices work to veil the fact that war is about killing. If we approach war art with this premise in mind, it becomes easier to erode some of the myths, lies, and romanticism. Yes, there are beautiful moments of humanity, mercy, wonder, gallantry, bravery, and comradery in war, but if we remember the whole endeavor is corrupt and flawed, we're better armed to more fully interrogate the subject.
CH: There seems to be a persistent thread in war literature and art that questions the validity of memory, of truth, of experience. In his poem "Beautiful Wreckage," W.D. Ehrhart questions, "What if none of it happened the way I said? / Would it all be a lie? / Would the wreckage be suddenly beautiful?" Is photography immune to...