A few questions with Micah and Whitney Stansell

• COURTESY THE ARTIST
• YOUTHFUL AIR: Micah and Whitney Stansell’s latest video installation uses dated props

Focusing on a time before the Internet, frequent collaborators Micah and Whitney Stansell explore the idea of youth in their new video installation, Scarlet Air, at Whitespace Gallery. With photographs, dreamy footage, and ’80s props, the viewer follows a young heroine, Grace, through her daily routine and changes in her relationships as a teenager. Winners of the Herradura Art Prize, this husband-wife team has shown their work around the world with permanent collections at SCAD Hong Kong, Cornell University and the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia.

Here, Micah and Whitney talk to CL about memories, their video installation and their love for College Park.

You were both involved in the video making process. How did you choose the overall theme for Scarlet Air and working through hours of footage?

Micah Stansell: I think the process of working through the footage is where having a collaborator really becomes essential. There are shots that we both agree on immediately and then other shots where we have to make our case and fight for them. It helps me a lot, especially because I may fall in love with a shot while shooting that might not be right for the final piece. Whitney can point that out and provide a different perspective.

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Tell me about the girl with the brown hair and the environment around her. She both seems like a regular girl and an extraordinary girl. Also, what time period were you focused on?

Whitney Stansell: I like your take on that the protagonist is a regular girl and an extraordinary girl. We always knew the work was going to be about her, Grace, and that we were going to travel with her as she did her daily, mundane tasks. I do think there is a beauty to her quotidian existence of hanging and shelving people’s used stuff. In the film, she rides her green bike to work through the snow. I think the way that Micah shot those scenes, with the sun rising, casting a beautiful orange glow on everything around Grace does take her ordinary surroundings and make them magical. The 1980s are such an interesting time for both Micah and I. We have memories of siblings and close relatives who were coming of age at that time. What a vision it was to watch them dress and create their bold, often very large hair styles. These memories made it easy when we were designing what Grace was going to wear - quite often she is wearing our families’ clothing. Our work is often part documentary/part fiction, memories of memories of stories told and retold.

MS: I think youth is something that interested us for this project because we were responding, in some way, to the stories of older siblings and how their coming of age in the late ’80s paralleled this rise in consumerism in the U.S. It was a time before cell phones, the Internet and hyper-connectivity, which has obvious effects on relationships and how they develop, change and grow, or die.

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The music complements the show so well. Tell me more about the score and working with Blake Williams.
MS: Blake is awesome to work with. I worked with him a good bit filming aerials. Beyond the music, Blake also operated the camera on all of the aerials. He is a really talented guy - a great filmmaker and musician. I think that familiarity helped in the process. We trusted that he would know what we had in mind for the music and he responded beautifully to the visuals with a really exceptional score. We couldn’t be more pleased with it.

As frequent collaborators, do you have a certain brainstorming/ creative process in place?
WS: In many ways, we are always brainstorming for the next project. It’s exciting. Micah usually has something to show me - a clip from a documentary, what we are currently reading (Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent), or something we see in our neighborhood. We are very inspired by our everyday environment of Historic College Park. We moved to Historic College Park 11 years ago. We moved into an old house built in the 1920s and it was filled with memorabilia the former owner had left behind. For most people, a barn full of a family’s personal items would have been a reason to order a large Dumpster, but Micah and I were thrilled. We found so many interesting objects, such as diaries, travel books, and clothing. It was as if we were able to learn all about the family through their personal possessions. This was in many ways the genesis of our interest in the anthropological nature of place and environment. College Park is also home to many octogenarians, who have called College Park home all their lives. They tell countless fascinating stories of the history of the South and our neighborhood. I believe their memories of events are so clear and concise because they have been telling and retelling the same stories for decades. Visually College Park seems to lend itself to be everywhere and nowhere. When experiencing our work, people often say, “I felt like I was back home.” This is significant to us because we really want the viewer to bring their own context and their own personal histories to the work.

Scarlet Air, an exhibition by Micah and Whitney Stansell, runs through May 10 at Whitespace Gallery. More details at the gallery.