JAI STREET
ISSUE 02
DIMENSION ZERO
ISAIAH BARR
Isaiah Barr rose to prominence in New York’s burgeoning downtown jazz scene as a saxophonist, composer and co-founder of jazz and art ensemble Onyx Collective. The group, a defining member of their generation’s jazz renaissance, would get its start at KNOW-WAVE Radio in 2014, later releasing work with the likes of Supreme and collaborating with Virgil Abloh and Lucien Smith on their “FRIENDS” exhibition. Today, Barr continues to explore other creative mediums, namely photography. In conversation with Renata Periera Lima, he discusses the ethos behind his photos, exploring as a creative act, Mexican multi-instrumentalist German Bringas, and the convergence between storytelling and documenting.
Do you see any similarities between the way you pick up your instrument and the way you pick up your camera? I choose the moments I pick up my camera as a mechanism to capture a feeling or something that is maybe unseen and part of my imagination and vision, and then capture that on film. In music, I try to go to an imaginary realm of sound, or seek that sound, and try to find it and encapsulate it in what becomes recording or performance - a chosen moment where I’m seeking out this kind of in between.
When you say “in between” and when you say “unseen” in regards to what you capture in your photographs, what are you referring to?I don’t know if it’s unseen, but maybe just what is considered mundane or not as front and center in the focal point. It’s kind of like things that you see when you stay in one location long enough or go back to one location for long enough. You start to see little things of beauty and things in the cracks.
Intimately close or physically close? More physically close, but intimately in terms of having a sensibility and appreciation for what things are and the beauty in simplicity. I think that closeness is important.
I’ve seen a lot of your photographs and it seems like you go back to visit the same sights over and over again. What makes you decide that a certain site is special? What makes you interested in going back over and over again? It’s more-so an interest in exploring in general. I have a genuine desire to explore through sound, photo, and video. I’ve always enjoyed the feeling of going to places where maybe there aren’t a lot of people, that are less traveled, or are some of the remaining locations within cities that are slightly untouched or not so trafficked. Everything has so many histories and layers, but in the case of places that you have to dig deeper to find, I enjoy going to those locations and finding something - whether it’s cats, or someone who feeds the cats or an abandoned building or graffiti from someone I know that I respect and have a connection to. I find my own meanings and mythology in these things. ​
Like your storytelling?It’s somewhere between storytelling and documenting. It’s like going to a space and letting it surround you and then picking up whatever you can from those remnants that may not be there the next time. It’s kind of like trying to be invisible, alert, and aware of the things that are between the lines so to speak.
If you were to describe stylistically the way in which you capture, choose three adjectives to do so. I try to be honest, somewhere between daring, careful, and nostalgic.
Do you go for texture, color, or size? I think about composition. That has to do with size, gestures, distance and closeness, among other things. In video too - when I am using a camera, I’m looking for settings. I love film so setting a frame is kind of like finding a whole portrait and everything within that plays a role - lighting, the movement going by. In my photos, I don’t think I’m great enough to have such a technical place in it yet, so I’m instead trying to capture settings and scenes, scene by scene. That’s why in this magazine, I want to portray the rolls as if they were movie scenes laid out in succession because I think that that is the storytelling. They are all just pieces of a story.
When you go out and explore, you usually take your camera with you. What’s the difference between you going out without your camera and exploring vs. you having your camera on you? ​I don’t have the presence of mind to always have it on me. When I’m in different headspaces, say going to gigs or the studio, I forget it and don’t think to bring it. I’m not trying to document everything in my life, even though I sometimes have thought of this as a positive or interesting thing to do. I’m more honestly impacted by going out and finding things. If I find nothing, I find nothing. If I find a friend, I find a friend and that moment is great because that’s now a part of it.
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If you could choose any country to go out and explore with your camera, where would it be? Eastern Europe. Somewhere in Russia, like far east Russia or even St. Petersburg. A city or forest environment - maybe a hybrid of the two. I’ve never been there. I’ve been to other parts of Asia and taken photos. I think it was incredible to get that opportunity and see life there, but I feel like the energy in Eastern Europe is something that I’ve only been able to see through studying films and books.
What is a country you’d never go to to photograph? Probably Dubai. I don’t really enjoy taking out the camera in places where I feel it’s so obvious what the subject is. From what I’ve seen and heard, it seems like there’s a lot of commerciality, a lot of stimulus, a lot of money there.
When you’re exploring here in New York, where do you find yourself going and returning to?​ Places I’ve never been. I like the energy of places by the waterfront. Really anywhere.
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It seems to me that there’s a motif in your photos - industrial machines and landscapes of warehouses and buildings. Are those things you are drawn to? Yes, but it is also the whole city as a tapestry which plays into it to a certain point. I think I can capture the same energy of trees in Central Park as I do in a really raw industrial environment. I think my photos can be anywhere. There’s also a desire to go to places I haven’t been because the city is still much bigger than any of us can traverse in a day. It’s also about trying to find how to capture something that everyone is seeing but in a different way.
Think about the assortment of photos that you’re curating in the magazine. If you could choose one song to be the soundtrack of all of these photos, what song would it be?​Tunel Hacia Ti by German Bringas. It’s an album that I brought back from Mexico City. It feels very free and solitary, but also very universal and completely organic and natural. The first time I heard it, it sounded so much like the downtown “free jazz” scene I was connected to here, though it felt not just like a city environment, but as free and wondrous as nature. I think that’s the point of some of these environments - to still have wonder in the eyes of the beholder. That’s what music, film and photography can channel. The beauty in something that just happens to be there everyday before our eyes but has different sides, feelings, emotions and energies to it. That record has that in a way that is very current. I admire that, and I think any great moments I’ve had in making music were done in that same way - being in an environment and present but also going into this imaginary space. This has a lot to do with nature and being connected to the love and admiration of the natural world. German’s a master of that and there’s so many ways to do that when you’re not in the traditional environment of the studio. The natural world and sounds from the street colliding with the room and even more so the candidness and non-formality is a modest thing. I think I relate to that more and more nowadays.
That makes a lot of sense. Do you have any dream projects you’d want to do with regards to your photos and videos? I’d love to do music in the environments that I photograph. It’s one thing to go play there, but to present to people and have that backdrop in real life is different.
Could you give me an example? I’ve always wanted to do a piece on a barge in the middle of the bay near Red Hook and have a view of the whole city while the musicians are on the barge. I think that would be incredible - with speakers so somehow you could hear it on the shore. It would be as if the people are in the environment as opposed to you playing in front of the environment.
Who is a photographer or director you really like and why? The director Andrei Tarkovsky. I like how he reveals locations and captures the feeling and portraiture of the human experience through space. Daido Moriyama - I like his photos as well. I feel he captures life in a static glitch of one moment, a suspended moment in time. He’s so fast.​
