I present the thing we're going to do as a simple starting point. They all know it's an art piece and that it's all going to be recorded. And I have never had an experience where one of these men tried to take advantage of the situation. If they were guilty of anything it was of being lonely. It was never that they were violent or dangerous.
Laurel NakadateI feel like the men who end up in my videos, their biggest crime is being lonely. They're not violent, they're not scary people, they're just men who keep to themselves and have a hard time being social.
Laurel NakadateI shot my undergraduate work on 35mm. I love the way it looks, but I haven't shot film in a while. If you can avoid scanning, it makes your practice faster. Oh, and I shoot a lot of Polaroid, too. I have about five hundred Polaroids from my film that I hope to show soon.
Laurel NakadateI would always say I'm doing a video project. About dancing or birthday parties. Of course, the video becomes more than that. It goes deeper than that. But it's not a lie. It's a starting point.
Laurel NakadateI won't look it in the eye. As soon as I do, I get scared. You gotta walk the plank at some point, but at first you gotta put blinders on or you'll overthink things. I think it's dangerous, by the way, to do a lot of talks about your art, to do so much talking and so little making. You get the wrong idea about yourself.
Laurel Nakadate