Here's our mini interview with Artist Luther Konadu. Luther Konadu is an emerging writer and artist of Ghanaian descent. He is a content creator for the online publication Public Parking, a project for highlighting the working practices of emerging creatives. He is also a writing contributor for Akimbo. His studio labour is project-based and realized through photographic print media and painting processes. He is interested in how the legacies of those mediums continue to shape prevailing perceptions of group identities. He uses his work to reinterpret those image-making mediums.L53: What made you choose Latitude 53? Why display your work in Edmonton?LK: I wanted to show my work outside of the art community that I already know to see how the work will be received both my jurors and audiences elsewhere. It's a good way as an emerging artist to gauge the sustenance of what you are putting out there. Latitude has had a great roster of showings in the past with artists whose work I respect so I figured I'd take the chance to apply when the opportunity came up.L53: You have text placed beside and on several images on the walls and table. What is the significance of the text with photography?LK: In some instances, text helps to continue what the photo has started. It serves as an extender to the image. It at times does what the image can't convey on its own. It also serves as a way to make the image a bit ambivalent and destabilize a straightforward narrative the viewer may project onto the photo. I'm always trying to avoid portraying a limited reading of the figures in the photos. And text in combination with the image makes the image less conclusive and absolute.L53: There is something incredibly intimate about your photographs. During the process of making this work did you receive any insight, or learn anything about this process from your friends and family involved?LK: Yeah, it is important that the person I'm capturing knows me well and is comfortable with me and vice versa. The whole process is a collaborative one. I think this allows for that intimacy. We both have to be on the same page and we don't have to be other people per se; we are actively involved in the process of portraying each another. As much as for the most part I'm capturing them, I'm capturing myself through them as well. I shoot them in my private studio space, the portrait of them is very much interrelated with myself...so a photo of them is in a lot of ways a photo of myself. They help me through the selection process. They tell me what photos work, and those I should avoid. They tell me which side they want to face the camera and how they want to appear. They are very much in control of their own image even though I'm the one holding the camera.Konadu's work Figure As Index will be displayed in the Main Space from February 23rd to March 31st. Join us February 23rd at 6pm for an artist walk through and at 7pm for the Opening Reception.
