Notes From The Week #18

Welcome back. Hope you’ve all had a good week. A good life is all about having and enjoying a varying range of ‘firsts’. Your first love, first career, first child, first house—there are so many firsts that define our lives. A winter world cup however is a first that is taking me a while to get into. It’s probably a cognitive bias on my side as I’ve always associated the world cup with London summers. I’m interested to know who everyone has got winning the World Cup? Shoot a message after you’ve finished. Personally, I’m rooting for Brazil. Samba football is back!

I’m aware last week was crypto heavy and so this week I’m restoring a balance and discussing art in forms that have been encouraging to me recently. We’ll take a quick look at empathy and then look at one of the greatest photographers of the twentieth century: Gordon Parks.

Notes on Empathy: Take Me To The River

I saw a tweet that had me thinking about the role of art in fostering empathy. Barack Obama has mentioned how his appreciation of fiction helped him to cultivate a greater sense of empathy1.

I think of the times when I find myself rereading a page to understand how I would feel in the situation being described on the page. Sometimes I’m close; I can resonate completely with the experience being described, other times my empathy takes me to a certain point but doesn’t allow me to complete the journey. I think that’s the point of writing—we’re all supposed to consume in our current context with our current understanding of ourselves and the world. I see music to be the same. I can listen to a song that was constantly on repeat during a particular moment in my life and be transported to that moment in my mind. I agree that it is probably the same when people share the songs they currently have in heavy rotation. It might not allow me to completely share their existence but it provides me a glimpse. I can pick out a line and understand why it may resonate for you at the moment and that’s a special thing.I remember watching a conversation between some athletes discussing the song River by Leon Bridges which reminded me exactly how I felt when I first heard it. In a way the song haunts you—it confronts you and asks you to make an honest assessment of yourself. Not the assessments you make while playing status-games but the ones that you make alone, for yourself and by yourself. The honesty pierces through the song in a way that only someone who really loves you can. It asks you are you being true? Are you being honest? It makes no judgment but encourages you to ponder.

Gordon Parks: 1912-2006

I was scrolling through Twitter this week and came across a photo that I had seen a few times before. I never used to think to deeply about the person who took the photo but I’ve started to pay more attention to the creators behind art I resonate with. This first became the case when a friend told me that when he went to Singapore he was captured by the country and wanted to know who was the person behind creating such a well organised nation. His eventual research would lead him to Lee Kuan Yew—a man he deeply admires and takes inspiration from till this day.

So when I decided to do the same research with the photo I was pleasantly surprised to learn about the late Gordon Parks. Born in Fort Scott, Kansas—his early beginnings were tough battling both segregation and poverty. Parks was initially captivated by photography when he came across images of migrant workers taken by Farm Security Administration (FSA) photographers in a magazine. With no professional training, Parks taught himself photography initially starting with a camera that he bought at a pawnshop.

Parks would go on to become one of the most prominent photographers capturing the events and figures of the Civil Rights Movement. In the aftermath of George Floyd’s death—the Black American experience forced itself to the pinnacle of the national agenda. The work of Gordon Parks came back into the collective memory of the US and sparked the discussion as to whether much had changed in the 60 years since the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Parks had unknowingly entered my world when I was getting ready to travel to New York for work in the fall of 2018. I posted a series of pictures on my Instagram. It wasn’t until looking at a collection of his photos in anticipation of writing this that I realised he was the photographer behind this incredible shot.

When I think about this shot I think about all the summers I had growing up. The times we would all play out from the early hours of the morning till the street lights would come on in the evening. Whenever I see this picture I’m reminded of the carefree days I would spend on the grass in the inner-enclave of my council estate watching the clouds go by. Life was limitless for us then. Thank goodness it continues to be so. As the photo constitutes Harlem, I’ll let Miles Hodges’ Harlem see us out this week.

Until next week. Peace.