FAQ
Aaron R. Turner:
‘Yesterday Once More’
WHEN — Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. through April 3; the gallery is also open 90 minutes prior to performances and during intermission
WHERE — Joy Pratt Markham Gallery at the Walton Arts Center in Fayetteville
COST — Free
INFO — 443-5600, waltonartscenter.org
FYI — All patrons will be required to wear a mask while inside Walton Arts Center.
Aaron R. Turner uses photography as a transformative process to understand the ideas of home and resilience in two main areas of the U.S., the Arkansas and Mississippi deltas. But in his exhibit “Yesterday Once More,” on show through April 3 at the Walton Arts Center in Fayetteville, he’s also selected books related to his subject and his inspirations that will be available for patrons to review in the space, and he has curated a playlist that can be accessed via a smartphone while visiting the exhibition.
“A lot of times people move through an exhibition quickly,” Turner says, “but by providing curated music and books, I hope to encourage people to stay in the space for an extended, immersive experience. Even though the exhibition contains all photography, it’s really not about photography, but more so about the way in which we all move through time and have shared experiences.”
Turner received his M.A. from Ohio University and an M.F.A from Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University, and is now an assistant professor in the School of Art at the University of Arkansas. He received a 2021 Houston Center for Photography Fellowship and a 2020 Artist 360 Mid-America Arts Alliance Grant, among other honors.
Turner took time to answer four questions for What’s Up! Answers have been edited for space.
Q. Where did you grow up? What was your family like? What was your everyday life like?
A. I grew up in the Arkansas Delta, right on the edge of it if you consider a specific geographical location, in West Memphis, Ark. The area is close to Memphis, Tenn., and northern West Mississippi, so I spent a lot of time in those areas.
My family was similar to a lot of people in that area. Both my parents worked, and economically we were somewhere in the middle; my mom worked in the medical field on the admin side of things, and my dad was an architect with his small firm out of Memphis. He worked all over Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi.
I remember going places with my parents and running into their old friends from high school, college and church. You always stop to say hello and see how people are doing. The conversation could be brief or at length, but from that, I learned what it meant to have a community of people you’re familiar with. My parents also never really met a stranger, especially my dad. He’d always go out of his way to talk to anyone, it seemed, and I saw my mom make lifelong friends with people over the years. I always remember driving out to Marion, Jeanette, Lancing, Earl, Turell, Proctor, Hughes, Crawfordsville, and Parkin on a larger scope of family. The family occupied all of these places. They were people who farmed, school teachers, factory workers, retail, entrepreneurs, doctors, you name it. Like everyone else, we tried our best to treat everyone right, help when we could, and find some honest way to care for ourselves and our family.
Every day involved everyday things such as going to school, church, grocery shopping, including the small farmer vendors you’d see on the side of the road in those gravel parking lots. It was just about resilience and survival, the passing down of traditions and values, faith and love.
Q. How does the land tell the story of humanity in a way portraits of people can’t?
A. One way I can answer that from my perspective is the sense of familiarity you get from being in a place you’ve occupied for a significant amount of time. There’s nothing I enjoy more than driving around or walking around without the use of G.P.S. There is a sense of independence or comfort when traveling without those things. You can use landmarks and react to your instincts that come from memory. This is what I experience when I visit the Arkansas Delta region now; this is what motivates me to take pictures of the land. I’m sitting around, and I remember that one gravel road we used to travel down to get to this family member’s house. You remember textures, smells, the light and time of day, evenings in that same place. All of my senses come into play, and my desire to make images is for other people to experience the same things or be a reminder of their sense of place regarding the landscape.
Q. Talk about the books and music you’ve added to the exhibition. What inspired that choice? And what do you hope they add to the viewing experience?
A. The idea of how things relate or influence is the motivating factor behind the music and books from several different perspectives. … I included all three of Eugene Richards’ books about Arkansas to date in the exhibition, which are: “Few Comforts Or Surprises: The Arkansas Delta” (1973), “Red Ball of a Sun Slipping Down” (2018) and “The Day I Was Born” (2020). … Knowing about Eugene Richards’ work is essential for me and, I think, the state of Arkansas too. That’s why I further contextualize his photographs with other photographers that made pictures in Arkansas, Geleve Grice and Mike Disfarmer, [and] another photographer from the Northwest Arkansas area, Deborah Luster.
As for the music, it’s the thing the images can’t do — put you in this immersive sense of feeling. Some of the songs reference the title of the exhibition, “Yesterday Once More,” so I included the song “Yesterday” by Big K.R.I.T., in which he speaks about the memory of his grandmother and the lessons she taught him. The song reminds me of the one grandmother I did grow up with and is still living. … Songs like “Tribute” by Robert Glasper and “How Many Years” by Yebba extend those thoughts on grief and losing someone close. My parents are no longer living, so those songs help contemplate specific experiences.
My hope is for viewers … to build a space to slow down and consider, apart from all of our busy daily lives.
Q. What do you hope viewers take away from seeing the exhibition?
A. I’ll bring up those words again — resilience, music, love, grief, and empathy. If they take away any of the terms in some form, that would mean a lot to me. I also hope they take away the fact that their community matters. Don’t be afraid to get out and record the story of a family member or neighbor through images, an audio device, or music. Collect it, and pass it down. … The photos will have much more meaning or an entirely different impact in the future.
Aaron Turner
Turner thought he’d be a photojournalist, until an assignment at Ohio University changed his mind. “The class assignment was to pick a location to visit for a total of ten days, gather pictures and interviews, come back and edit, write the story and then publish your magazine. Mine was titled ‘Delta Journal.’” (Courtesy Image/Aaron Turner)
“After leaving Ohio University, I went on to study art at Rutgers, Mason Gross School of the Arts,” Turner says. “That was a life-changing decision. I didn’t grow up thinking about becoming an artist or visiting museums that often. But once I became aware of what artists do, I knew it was for me. I can’t imagine my life without a camera or art.” (Courtesy Image/Aaron Turner)
“I think the concept of owning land here in America evokes so many different realities of humanity,” says Turner. “The land that our bodies occupy is essential to us all. It’s a sense of self-being and self-determination that comes along with it.” (Courtesy Image/Aaron Turner)
“You remember textures, smells, the light and time of day, evenings in that same place,” says Turner of his landscape photographs. “All of my senses come into play, and my desire to make images is for other people to experience the same things or be a reminder of their sense of place regarding the landscape.” (Courtesy Image/Aaron Turner)
“One photograph in the exhibition that I want everyone to see is my mother’s large inkjet cotton fabric print,” Turner says. “It just really shows my thoughts on time and how things unfold. It depicts my mother for maybe an hour or so, maybe less, of her facial expressions, the sunlight change all in one location. I just like the way it observes time, it finds meaning in a small mundane moment, and a large part of our lives are small and ordinary.” (Courtesy Image/Aaron Turner)