Woman Crush Wednesday: Bronwen Wickstrom
Loverboy, 2020. ©Bronwen Wickstrom.
Interview by Kylie G Bryant.
In your recent project “Out of Bounds” you explore the relationship between curiosity, queerness, and nature. Can you talk about how you've been able to maintain your sense of curiosity into adulthood?
I've always been a collector of objects, rocks, bones, sea shells, antlers, snakeskins, butterflies, sea shells- truly any natural remnants of something else lived, a sort of entropic trophy. There's something about the act of looking down and combing the ground for treasures that reenacts a childhood gesture for me. As adults, we tend to favor looking up and outward toward the horizon and grand vistas, but you'll always catch me with my nose to the dirt scouring for the perfect stone. I use photography in the same way, I'm always searching for the apex of a moment, exchange or gesture that suggests more than what is just pictured. Traces, glimmers, echos and carcasses, in all respects.
Xander and Luca, 2019. ©Bronwen Wickstrom.
How do you keep yourself grounded and connected to nature while living in an environment as urban as New York?
Living in an urban place is what makes me respect nature so much more, and vice versa. I get just as excited to leave the city as when I go to return, knowing that my life and community exists here, but can be extended into nature. Nothing is better than packing as many friends as possible (pre covid) into my car and heading out of town for a long weekend. Those are the moments that most of my images capture. Living and breathing, making and escaping, they both go hand in hand.
Jacob Riis, 2020. ©Bronwen Wickstrom.
In your statement for ‘Out of Bounds” you talk about escaping pre-made societal moulds and rebuilding them individually. What would your mould look like?
It's not so much about the mould, but the process which creates the mould. That process is my loose definition for what would be living in the present tense, here and now, rather than focusing on categories that are defined by the past and future. I think of the mould as a combination of elements where a reaction takes place, materially and conceptually. People fluidly entering and exiting my life, relationships running their course, sometimes creating new ones in that process. Like alchemy, generating new life out of the reaction, may it be biological, cosmic or just two people with a connection. Something mercurial; exchange, genesis, reaction, production. The goal is to be without the desire for a mould, but need be, those would be the elements.
Sarah, 2020. ©Bronwen Wickstrom.
Describe your creative process in one word.
Tangled.
If you could teach a one-hour class on anything, what would it be?
A class on how to be alone. I think it's just as important as maintaining relationships with people, and I would consider myself fluent in falling off the face of the earth. It goes beyond physical aloneness. We social creatures have developed this desire to communicate that goes beyond just the barebones need to convey meaning or understand each other. It has become a compulsive act of making internal experiences external, through social media and just globalization in general. Communication is now an industry, rather than just a connection. I think we could all use a class in learning how to turn that off every once in a while.
Emily, 2020. ©Bronwen Wickstrom.
What was the last book you read or film you saw that inspired you?
I'm usually reading a handful books at any given time because I get distracted and like to bounce around. I just finished The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein and Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit. I've read almost everything Solnit has written but for some reason had never touched that book- ask anyone any they'll tell you my bible is her A Field Guide to Getting Lost. Any sort of personal narrative essays or prose are usually my go tos.
Southwick, 2018. ©Bronwen Wickstrom.
Liv at Jacob Riis, 2020. ©Bronwen Wickstrom.
