BY STEVE BISSON
1. Tell us about your current photographic research?
Currently I am focusing my attention on a project I’ve been slowly working on for a number of years. The project focuses on 6,000+ Found Polaroids I have collected. The project explores what we can learn from misplaced images and the material manifestations of our lives and the lives of others.
© Out West by Kyler Zeleny (The Velvet Cell, 2014)
2. Let’s talk about ‘Out West’?
Out West is a project exploring small rural communities and rural culture in the Canadian West. Over two summers I visited and documented 160 communities with a population of 1,000 (or less). I was interested in looking at the current state of these communities and wanted to document what I thought was their decline into neglect and ambiguity.
© Out West by Kyler Zeleny (The Velvet Cell, 2014)
3. How did you get the idea for the book?
The idea for the project came when I was living in London, originally it was not intended as a book. I started to see a lot of emphasis being placed on ‘the urban’ in popular culture and academia. I felt that rural studies were lacking, possibly being undervalued as a redundant system. I also try to work off the belief that when everyone is looking at one thing (no matter the mechanism or approach), it is best to set one’s gaze upon something else.
© Out West by Kyler Zeleny (The Velvet Cell, 2014)
4. How did you choose the editor?
I studied with Eanna, The Editor and Founder of The Velvet Cell, in London, and from a friendship emerged our working relationship. He was interested in the work and so I chose to publish with him because I knew his level of dedication and belief in his projects.
5. How was your relationship with the publisher in the book making?
The Velvet Cell and I have a strong collaborative relationship. I do not think either one of us, on our own, could have created such a well-rounded book.
© Out West by Kyler Zeleny (The Velvet Cell, 2014)
6. What did your learn from this experience, plus and minus?
The overall experience is positive and in my eyes is ongoing. Departing (cliché) words of wisdom—nothing easy is worth doing. The project required a lot of work from The Velvet Cell and myself, like anything that is actually worth doing.
7. Plans for the future?
I will be moving to Toronto at the end of summer to continue my studies as a doctoral student at a joint York/Ryerson program in Communication and Culture. While there I hope to explore some questions that arose out of the Out West project.
8. Can you suggest us 3 photography books that you liked?
Mike Brodie’s A Period of Juvenile Prosperity is stunning, Boris Mikhailov’s The Wedding Book is beyond original in my opinion and Alec Soth’s Sleeping by the Mississippi has great execution.
© Out West by Kyler Zeleny (The Velvet Cell, 2014)
MORE INFO:
'Out West'
Kyler Zeleny
112 pp / 148 x 210 mm
Section-Sewn with Card Cover,
Colour Offset Printed
ISBN 978-1-908889-24-9
Limited Edition of 500
July 2014