Title
Not Drowning, Just Waving
Rule / Constraint
The images in Not Drowning, Just Waving revisit the tradition of pictorial emblems, post-Gutenberg allegorical compositions produced from the 16th through the 18th century, beginning in 1531. Incorporating both text and image and a wide variety of social iconographies, each single-page emblem added to an accumulating, encyclopedic view of the cultural insights and beliefs of the day. They were ultimately published in book form, and as such, became records of the thinking and events of a particular time in history. Makers of historical emblems adhered to a strict format consisting of three parts: the “lemma” (a textual caption that appears at the top of the page and introduces a general subject), the “pictura” (the central pictorial element) and the “epigramma” (the afterword). Inspired by their legacy and challenged by their formal constraints, versions that reflect and document complex cultural issues faced in contemporary life were made.
Medium(s) / Material(s)
Text, image.
Technique(s)
Iconographic accumulation.
Bio
Sally Grizzell Larson lives in Philadelphia. Screenings of her video works include 11° FILE (Electronic Language International Festival), São Paulo; Berlin International Directors Lounge; Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin/Madrid; Time Film Festival, Lausanne, Switzerland; Athens Video Art Festival, Greece; NewFilmmakers NY, Anthology Film Archives; Alternative Film/Video Festival, Belgrade; National Museum of Women in the Arts’ Festival of Film and Media Arts; and the Toronto Urban Film Festival, where her video “Axiom” was awarded “Best in Category: The Medium is the Message” and Third Place overall. Her video “Certain Women” was awarded “Best of Festival–Experimental” at the Berkeley Video and Film Festival in 2006. Her photographic work has been published in Monochrom (#26-34, Vienna, 2010); ITCH Magazine (London and Johannesburg, 2009); “Photography Reborn” (Abrams, 2005); “Writing the World: On Globalization” (M.I.T., 2005); “Digital Art Revolution” (Random House/Watson-Guptill, 2010); and Rethinking Marxism (University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1995); among others. Exhibition venues include National Centre of Contemporary Art, Moscow; SIGGRAPH; Brooklyn Museum; Yale University Art Gallery; and Kunstraum B/2, Leipzig.
Artist Info
rhizome.org/profiles/sallygrizzelllarson/