#offchain
About this series
THE GHOSTLIGHT PROJECT is a photographic exploration of that time, not so long ago, when theaters went dark during the pandemic. No live music, drama, poetry, humor, nor dance. No gatherings. They were silent and so were we. In this exploration, Sara Jane Boyers captured live performance spaces in Southern California’s theaters as they sat in darkness, shrinking from Covid’s financial devastation, and traditionally guarded by their unblinking sentinel, the ghost light. A book/exhibition project, Boyers hopes to bring attention to live performance spaces worldwide that inspire creative conversation, critical thinking, and change; so vital to us all.
Interview
How did you develop the Ghostlight Project? Meaning, how did it happen you had the idea and how long have you been photographing on the project?
In March of 2020, my then ongoing Los Angeles photographic shoot consisted of photographing “The Shop,” Center Theater Group’s backstage costume, scenic and prop facility. A former personal manager of musical performers and the child of theater-loving parents, I had fallen in love with the backstage aspect of performance and the architectural allure of these live performance spaces. I was hoping to turn the project into an article or perhaps even a children’s book.
That project however was not to be for on 12 March 2020, all public gatherings were closed in California due to the Covid pandemic, the theaters and concert halls among them. As venue after venue went dark, we began to realize that our loss was not just the fleeting pleasure of a night’s entertainment but in fact a startlingly raw roadblock to our ability to be together just to communicate. It isolated us all: playwright, composer, performer, and audience.
To alert ourselves to what we had lost, I made a diverse selection of theaters in my own Southern California region, that were symbolic of live venues worldwide. I thought I would capture them in this new perspective: uncommonly quiet and vacant, lit if at all by their traditional ghost light, that single bulb often placed to occupy the ghosts each night when all had left. The symbolism is intended to contrast this architecture created for human interaction with this moment when we could no longer gather, create, perform, nor experience new ideas together.
While the actual time dedicated to photographing the spaces was approximately one year and another to edit the work, write the introduction and work with a book designer and printer, the preparation/research time was even longer for so many theaters had few if any employees nor administration left with whom to chat during these crisis years.
How many theaters did you photograph? Is the project finished or still ongoing?
The 15 theaters who so kindly opened their doors to me covered such a broad range of stories and focus - from large concert halls to small equity waiver storefronts - that I felt strongly that the goal of depicting the great breadth of performance was covered. Now, with so many spaces reopening and new ones developing, THE GHOSTLIGHT PROJECT is complete as a photographic shoot. That said, the stressful and tenuous times are not over as subscribers only slowly return and programming is still not well settled.
I hope to exhibit the photographic prints to accompany the book and re-envision theghostlightproject.net website to keep the positive return of social and cultural gatherings fresh in our minds. The site will also provide links to enable viewers to directly donate to the specific theaters to help them now as they work so valiantly to regain their footing.
Has there been a certain eye opener moment during the project, something that made you think differently on the documentary?
The physical photography approach of THE GHOSTLIGHT PROJECT was challenging. It required long exposure with only the one small bulb often in cavernous space which, except for required safety/exit lights, provided the sole illumination. My cameras were on tripod.
With so few people around to even open a theater’s door, the shoot was a challenge of timing, respecting the number of responsibilities these few administrators had for their sleeping venue. The equipment requirements required change as well. As an example, I found I needed to purchase an autofocus wide angle lens to accomplish some of the shots as the focus points were hard to find in this deep dark, even worse with my wonderful, but more precise manual focus ts24 lens – I am older as well! Then, whether manual or auto focus, I was constantly walking toward the point of focus and back, carrying my little lantern, to better hone in on a proper focus.
Compositionally, I was deeply inspired by the dramatic atmosphere of these dark environments invested with story and personality. Armed only with the small lantern as I plotted perspectives, each shoot became a treasure hunt, the light, more than I, choosing what dramatic detail and truth might ultimately be revealed. And then when reviewing the raw files on my computer in one theater, I realized I’d unknowingly captured the unseen, a ghost (!) … its amorphous form wrapping itself like a translucent shawl over audience seats and then onto the stage. Hardly a believer, yet it seemed that I was given here the ultimate approval to work on the project.
And while I love theater, my own personal objective to illuminate the breadth of theatrical offerings in this large geographic region and to increase understanding of our important need to be together for so many reasons was accomplished. Rising out of such a period of isolation, so many inhabitants of the performance world and their patrons are increasingly more aware of their mission to ensure that we not only portray our own individual tales but listen, understand, honor, and incorporate into our stories, the histories and tales of others.
Currently this series is available as photo book. Do you plan to release them as NFTs? And if so, when?
I am truly intrigued by NFTs but not yet knowledgeable enough in this area to plan an NFT release. Perhaps soon as I watch you and my friend, Karin Apollonia Müller, and others wade in. I am somewhat old school and still love the physicality of a beautiful print.
On the other hand, I am fascinated by the NFT concept, especially the independence and “ownership” valuation of the “object” for I am a way-long-ago intellectual property attorney and my major nationally awarded and published argument for increased artist rights and remuneration suggested new avenues of income and artistic control and now, here we are!
What are your current and future projects?
I am still working on two long-term book/exhibition photographic projects, both of which have had at least one solo gallery exhibition, respectively. Both investigate aspects of the American Story, continuing to weave and honor the very layered fabric of our North American culture.
The first is an exploration of the Chinatowns of the US & Canada, FINDING CHINATOWN. I thought I was finished with this project, but I just returned from a short trip to the American South and discovered several fascinating small sites of 19th Century Chinese immigration there and I am desirous of capturing more of that history.
Similarly, I have been exploring my birth city, Detroit, Michigan; a place I knew nothing about as we moved to California when I just was a baby. I am learning about the Midwest and especially its 20th Century industrial prominence and slow, difficult decline. Today in the 21st Century, this has become the story of its people and their creative resistance and renewal.
Underlying this all is my desire to work simultaneously with word and image. Although I haven’t been active in the children’s book field in recent years, I am looking forward to a time in the near future to return to an illustrated book project that I have wanted to finish for so long: an adaptation of a photo story I completed several years ago of a great man, the renowned Chinese American artist - and my friend - Tyrus Wong, whom I so respected and photographed in the last decade of his life. The project would combine my writing, photographic and graphic design arts and I look forward to the challenge.
Artist Bio
After successful careers in music and publishing, Los Angeles-based Sara Jane Boyers returned to a serious focus on her photography. Her interest is the American story. Influenced by her fine art background and interest in social structure, she searches for presence and social meaning in everyday perspectives.
A print from DETROIT:DEFINITION, Boyers’ long-term project on the city of her birth, was exhibited at the Venice Biennale/Architecture2016 and in 2019, other prints were showcased in China’s 3rd International Industrial Photo Exhibition in Shenyang Provence, PRC. Other projects include FINDING CHINATOWN: AN AMERICAN STORY exploring the US & Canadian Chinatowns; GRIDLOCK, photographs shot while stuck in traffic; and GO FLY A KITE: SATURDAYS AT THE BEACH WITH TYRUS WONG. Her work is exhibited and collected in public and private collections worldwide and has been published in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Huffington Post, Les Echos (Paris), Modern Magazine, Dwell and in books and respected online media.
Boyers is also a published writer/editor with several award-winning books for youth. Her first book, the celebrated LIFE DOESN’T FRIGHTEN ME, marrying the expressive art of Jean-Michel Basquiat with the empowering words of Dr. Maya Angelou, was recently released by Abrams Books in an updated 25th Anniversary Edition.
Photographer: Sara Jane Boyers
Twitter: @sarajaneboyers
Instagram: @sarajaneboyersphoto
Prints: Sara Jane Boyers
Book: The Ghostlight Project
Photos copyright Sara Jane Boyers
DRAWLIGHTS | 1/1 – one post/one photographer, weekly. Off-chain and on-chain. By Peter Nitsch, lens-based artist, a member of Jenny Metaverse, RawDAO and lifetime Member of the Royal Photographic Society of Thailand.
Want a bigger dose of blockchain photography? My friends at PhotoVerso have been bringing the space its weekly news. Visit them here and subscribe for weekly rollups, artist interviews, editorial pieces and more.