Nowhere in Place

Christopher Jordan, with an introduction by Hank Lazer

A pioneering book on how mindful meditation informs an artist’s vision

Publisher: George F Thompson Publishing

Hardcover
144 pages with 92 color photographs by the author 
9.5″ x 9.0″ landscape/horizontal
ISBN 978–1–938086–85–4

Published May 2021

Distributed by Casemate/IPM  
www.casemateipm.com

Published in association with the
Center for the Study of Place 

“Christopher Jordan’s intriguing intersection of photography and meditation takes us on an aesthetic journey across Tuscaloosa, Boulder, and India in Nowhere in Place…Stunning images and philosophical reflections lead us towards a transcendent horizon where each composition of colors, lighting, and design gives us a glimpse into our universal humanity…Every reader will be swept away by the magic of Nowhere in Place.

—Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh, Chair of the Department and Crawford Family Professor of Religious Studies, Colby College

Photography and meditation are known to facilitate reflection and introspection. They teach us to see both the outer world and the mysterious landscape within. In Nowhere in Place, photographer Christopher Jordan explores the meeting place between meditation and photography and how this mirroring of outer and inner worlds plays upon both the surface of his consciousness and the sensor of his digital camera.

Before Jordan ventures outside to make pictures, he spends time in quiet meditation. This is an important process of switching gears from the everyday noise of the cluttered mind to a more serene state of awareness. This reset allows Jordan to see the world in fresh ways, appreciating overlooked details that might escape a mind preoccupied with business-as-usual.

The book starts in Tuscaloosa, where Jordan lives. For many, T-town is a place of Southern charms and Alabama football, but, for Jordan, it becomes a visual play of textures, colors, and abstract planes with nary a person in sight. The pictures reveal a placeless solitude within the frame of his camera. The book moves west to Boulder, another college town, where his contemplative eye continues to fix upon unusual shapes, colors, and textures while intersecting with an occasional figure. The book reaches full bloom in India, where the interplay between inner and outer landscapes knows no bounds, as his camera reveals a kaleidoscopic interplay of people, places, and things.

Within each locale, Jordan photographed “nowhere” in particular, because, for him, the photograph becomes a place of its own being: a sanctuary for meditation, a record of what is seen and heard and felt, an opportunity to see a place and an image right now. For Jordan, the photograph is a medium of meditation and transcendence, providing a point of intersection where one recognizes our shared, common humanity.

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