MOVING || GHOSTS

April 1, 2020 Arseny Vesnin

I love the central library in KC because I always have loved/collected libraries: I go to one in every place I visit. They're pretty fair places. Everyone is welcomed, and we all share the same resources. They're reservoirs of culture, and the KC library is exquisite, so full of history, it's grand, it's full of different people and the quiet is so full. Finally, I love the giant slide in concourse park because it's brilliant and I take kids there all the time, and I think it's fun to try and remember how to be a kid. Oh and I love uptown arts bar because I used to sing at the open mics there and that was my introduction to a KC community, - Laura Kennedy

Jacob Buchanan is a photographer and multi-media artist operating under the pseudonym Melting Giraffe. He often deals in themes of dissociation, identity, and the suggestion of narrative - same as you may find within his new project MOVING || GHOSTS.

Not in kc: The Smokey mountains, Sumter national forest, the burren ireland. In kc st, James on troost, the slabs in Gillham park, Mattie rhodes, the central library, The giant slide in concourse park? Well I grew up in Kentucky running around in the woods, so the Smokeys and Sumter remind me of the green hills and mountains of home. There's something very comforting about being surrounded by wildness and green. You can't escape the growing things, even though there are these deep shadows. For me the South is a place of enormous tragedy but it's inseparable from my roots. For kc, I love the slabs because I lived kind of close to gillham park and we used to walk down there and have drinks and watch the sunset and marvel at the graffiti. It's a beautiful example of a neighborhood/community adapting a space.

/ / MOVING | | GHOSTS / / is an ongoing project that I started at the beginning of 2019 where I am collaborating with people to create portraits of them in locations important to them while wearing their favorite outfit. I ask people to wear their favorite outfit is because clothes show where that person is at that period of their life, how they feel & have been feeling. The clothes express who they want to be and in turn, give them confidence. I am interested in sharing who people are and the connection that comes with that. The catch is that they have to hide their face. I ask that people cover their face because it kills the model / identity but allows for other parts of who they are to come out in the image. Important locations come from the idea of boudoir. Boudoir comes from the french word bouder meaning: to sulk. Historically, sulking was seen as something one would do privately, and the term bouder came to encapsulate a room where one would go to withdraw and be quietly alone. A bouder was a place of intimacy and privacy, where one could express their true selves without fear of judgment or punishment.

Jacob Buchanan

“I usually do Barnes and noble or level one at the river market It’s where I go to find solice. Manga and stuff like dnd is a healthier escape from my anxiety than drugs or alchohol Yeah through drugs and alcohol but that turned dark fast so now I run dnd games and make my own stories and when I’m done with school I wanna travel. It’s more life is mundane and I want to adventure. That’s actually why I model I wanna travel to all the fashion capitals and get paid for it”, - Chance

“I’ve tried to think about it a lot! But I love nature, I have a bunch of plants. I think the path that I’ve been going in, I end up growing in different aspects. I can only imagine that being reciprocated visually through nature. I believe life is a simulation”, - Victoria

St. James is incredibly diverse, open-minded and social justice oriented. It is a church focused primarily on people, which gives me a great deal of hope. It's also just an incredibly happy place. Mattie Rhodes is where I work, and I think it's the happiest place on earth. It's three floors of recycled/donated art supplies and decades of children's artwork.