On Nikki S. Lee

Okay, I'm not going to lie to you. I've hit a bit of a wall. I have a few more interesting (I hope) things to say about Counseling The Culturally Diverse, but I'm very frustrated by the text. Handbook of Multicultural Counseling leaves me cold as well. It's 926 pages, it has an authoritative tone, but I can't help but feel it's constantly stating the obvious. It's as if it were written by a computer or a very large group of people who bickered over every detail.

So, as I said in my last blog post, I'll revisit the work of Nikki S. Lee.

I own a copy of Projects and I read it from time to time. I first became aware of the text when I was in college. Some of the photographs of Lee have really stayed in my mind. They act almost as memories. For the past ten years, I've been associating things in my own life to the photos.

The photo of Lee on cover of the book reminds me so much of a woman that used to hang out near the building where I once worked in Lawrence. She was Latina, but everyone talked about how 'China' she looked. Yup. She was a nice enough lady, and I enjoyed talking to her a few times. She was Dominican, or Puerto Rican, and she looked kind of Asian, so everyone called her (in Spanish) 'La China.' Nothing too deep here. That's about it.

The photo of Lee in a doorway in the Ohio Project section has stayed with me as well. I've never thought of why they stayed in my head, but I can guess. It seems that in either photo, Lee is commenting on the gestures, postures, clothing and facial features of the women around her. She's not really saying anything specific about the people who surround her. She's just assimilating herself into their group and seeing what happens.

These comments she's made about Latinas and White women have stuck with me, but really, they can't be put into words. If you want to know what I'm talking about when I think of the photos, look at them yourself.

That's kind of a frustrating thing to say, I guess, but I when I looked at Lee's photos for the first time in a few months, I was frustrated as well. I could say something about race being fluid (obvious if you look at the photo) or the fact that context seems to accentuate the presence of Lee's identity while simultaneously obscuring it (just look at the photo, and this is completely obvious too.)

I had never before been so aware that Lee's work consisted of snapshots and how although the people in them were posed and the text of the photograph was composed as well, more than anything, the pictures attempt to recreate the style of photos taken by people who don't know how to take photos or care too much about composition. So here, her work resists interpretation, or discussion. You look at the photo, and although it communicates something, it does so in a way that does not draw too much attention to technique.

There's something almost opaque about the photos, particularly those in the yuppie series.

The interview Lee gives with Gilberto Vicario in Projects motivates a lot of these new feelings I have about Lee's work. Remarking on the fashion world, she mentions this interplay I've been beginning to notice between the 'snapshot' way of creating a photograph and the 'artistic' way of creating a photograph:

“...the one thing I respect is its shallowness: it's so deep---it's so serious! It can be hard to get that kind of shallowness because of its depth and seriousness. It's very tricky!” (99).

Okay, the photos aren't just snapshots. I think I went too far there when I said that. Really, the book cover, is very much a composed photo suitable for the cover of a book. She has a contemplative look on her face. She's not in the exact center of the picture (I remember in high school photo class being told never to put your subject in the center---this, I have always believed to be the difference between 'art photography' and snapshots. Here, we see the value of this lesson---these are not just snapshots) her body arches, you've got the space between the stairs sort of...adding composition and variety (two words a friend of mine in who went to art school would often use when doing impressions of people in his critiques---but I think I'm using them responsibly.)

In the 'yuppie project' photograph above, she does something interesting with depth, using the diagonal line created desk on her right to play off a similar line created by the florescent lights above her. She's off to one side with a roomful of men around her. She looks as tired as the men on her left, but she can't let her body go as they do. The one guy in the white shirt has a gut. If Lee's character became this overweight at her corporate job, she'd be fired. Yuppie Lee looks trapped. The lines created by the desk and florescent lights suggest a prison or cage holding her in.

Later in the interview, Vicario steers the conversation back toward the issue of 'depth' in Lee's photographs:

“A lot of people have been provoked by your work, or questioned the validity of it. You know, 'Okay, so she's going into these different communities. That's great, but I want it to go deeper' ” (102).

She responds:

People do come up to me, asking 'why don't you go deeper' as you said.

"But it's not about Nan Goldin's work, you know, going from bathroom to bedroom.

Go to your house and look at your snapshot album. You don't have pictures of sex scenes. Most people only have snapshots when they go travelling. They don't really take a look at the details." 103

What kind of depth do people want from Lee? What do they want from a photograph? Do they want her getting close ups of people smoking crack in their houses while their kids are in the home? When Projects was published, Brenda Ann Kenneally was doing just that! Look!

Say what you want about Kenneally's work, love it or hate it, but one fact remains: this is just not what Nikki S. Lee is trying to do! She does not aspire for the same kind of 'depth' as Kenneally. What do people want when they someone to go “deep” into a community? Do they want sex and drugs? Do they want tears and abuse? Lee is taking a different direction, and her lack of “depth” is not paired with a lack of substance.

She goes on to tell Vicario: “If people think it's boring, that's fine. But somehow it is emotional, because I do have an attachment with those people, although I never force it. I don't usually get really close to anyone's personal issues, but I don't consciously maintain a distance. I just open up to people, and if they come, I accept it. I don't force anyone to be close to me” (103)

She has a distinct relationship with her subjects. She does not become completely 'enveloped' in their community. She does something else. She is subtly playing with ideas of race and representation. Look at this photograph from The Schoolgirl Project:

The three students around Lee seem to feel awkward in her presence. She is smiling much more than they are. She seems to be deliberately posing with this group.

Here, we see a similar effect. The woman with the 'Wilson' t-shirt in the middle of the photograph seems uneasy next to Lee. You can tell by her facial expression and the way she is holding her shoulders. The woman on the far right side of the photograph seems to be of the same attitude. Her arms are crossed and her fists are balled up. You can see tension in her flexed right shoulder blade. The other two people in the background of the photo seem to be deliberately avoiding the photographer's gaze to prevent from laughing.

Does that say something distinctive about her own Asian identity? NO! That would be too simple! Lee is not just 'blending' into the photos. She's not just doing a trick to impress her audience. In this last photo, she seems to be almost showing herself of as a kind of oddity. She's playing with the idea of race. 'Playing' with the idea of photography. Lee's viewers are not just given cheap thrills. There is something much more subtle going on. The 'depth' that her critics desire of her work would only come along with the sacrifice of these careful, subtle details. We don't see this subtle attention to mood and nuance in Kenneally's work, do we?

She provides further insight into how she wants to be interpreted later in the interview when she tells Vicaro “this thing about identity in the West is all about the individual” – Vicaro asks Lee to clarify, and wonders if she means to say that “one's self is always understood in relation to that which surrounds you” (100). Lee agrees and tells him “the underlying concept” in her work is that “other people make me a certain kind of person” (100). It's about inner relationship and how those really address the idea of identity.” This is something Lee draws our attention to---that there is a greater meaning in her work. She's tells us she thinks that being labelled “a chameleon...” is “ a cliché” and that people are too lazy to invent new words,” but she forgives them (100).

I remember a friend of mine in college saying how the Lee's photos were a commentary about the fluidity of Asian identity. I remember this comment made my twenty year old self get a bit agitated (it wasn't hard to do those days). While I do agree that's a part of what Lee is doing, more than anything, she is having fun. She is playing with our ideas and just kind of being a jester. Look at this odd social construction we have in this country. Let's see where it is. I think I can learn a lot more from this kind of spirited play than by reading Multicultural Counseling.