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A lot of people have said that the main thread in my work is loneliness or just wanting to create a world with someone who doesn't really have much in their life, so maybe I'm looking for someone who's lonely and wants to try to create something with me as a subject for my videos.

Laurel Nakadate

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Laurel Nakadate
Age: 48
Born: 1975
Born: December 15
Artist
Film Director
Austin
Texas
Work
Subjects
Videos
Much
Wants
Thread
Something
Create
Wanting
Really
Maybe
Loneliness
Life
Looking
Video
World
Doesn
Main
People
Someone
Lonely
Trying
Subject

More quotes by Laurel Nakadate

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Heartbreak is when you're just far enough away from what you desire that you can feel it. Change is the Pangaea moment. I feel like I'm at this point in my life where I have created this place, this island in the ocean, and I'm happy there.
Laurel Nakadate
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I think it's a really good idea to be bumping into all kinds of people in all kinds of ways. So you make art with strangers. You give a reading. You move somewhere new and try to build a life. You grapple with humanity.
Laurel Nakadate
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A cupcake is like a great pop song. The whole world in less than three minutes. And it's impossible to have a bad cupcake. In New York you walk everywhere. So I'm always looking, always on the eternal search for the perfect cupcake. I take them very seriously. It's like hunting and gathering for me.
Laurel Nakadate
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A lot of people think that my work is about mocking or making fun of things, but a lot of it is about discomfort and making myself as uncomfortable as the men feel, or putting myself in a situation where I'm revealing my loneliness as much as they're revealing theirs.
Laurel Nakadate
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Discomfort and awkwardness are places where you feel things. I'm a big advocate for being happy. We can choose to live in a happy bubble. But part of being happy is understanding how sad things can be.
Laurel Nakadate
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I love fiction. I like reading short stories. Cupcakes, pop songs, Polaroids, and short stories. They all raise and answer questions in a short space. I like Lorrie Moore. Amy Hempel. Tim O'Brien. Raymond Carver. All the heartbreakers.
Laurel Nakadate
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It's always a problem - you've got to figure out a place to put your body. You've got to wake up in the morning and deal with the fact that you have this body to lug around.
Laurel Nakadate
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I never want to make videos with people who don't want to make them with me. I don't want to force people to take part. Only people who want to collaborate. And that's important because otherwise, the videos wouldn't work. Them choosing to take part is very important to the videos.
Laurel Nakadate
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Death is sad, yes, but there are some great laughs you can find there.
Laurel Nakadate
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Well, my intention is to make work about being uncomfortable. About being in a world that isn't always the world you want to be part of. I talk a lot about the free fall, the moment in the scene where gravity takes over, and the beautiful awkwardness when gravity wins. Gravity is hilarious. Gravity always wins.
Laurel Nakadate
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After you die, your body is just there. Isn't it kind of embarrassing that your body is going to be there and you have no say or control over it? Somebody's going to have to deal with it. I've always respected people who kill themselves and find a way to get rid of the body. Very clean. Lost at sea. I can see why they do that. There's nothing left.
Laurel Nakadate
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There's such an energy created when the world is turned upside down, and when things are good again it's nice to take note. Then it goes away. Change. Change means friction. Friction happens where things aren't quite right, when everything is separating, when nothing is the same. Later you piece it back together.
Laurel Nakadate
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I believe that I am some sort of fiction writer and I'm using myself in my work because I'm the person I'm most convenient to use!
Laurel Nakadate
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I think that fact alone levels everything. Slapstick amazes me, the folly of humans today, the Ponzi schemes, giving birth to eight babies at once, it's amazing... And I know, it's horrible to have your money stolen and all that, but those are amazing stories.
Laurel Nakadate
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[Photography] ties back into this feeling of wanting to watch things fall and the moment before they break. Fireworks are that way for me - this lovely thing that blows up and is gone. It all goes back to this desire to record things before they disappear - the original reason we take pictures, right?
Laurel Nakadate
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Things might not get better but they might not get worse. There's something sort of beautiful about that.
Laurel Nakadate
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What I love about photography is that nothing is really as it seems.
Laurel Nakadate
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I'm more interested in the idea of role-playing in general than the idea of role-playing in art. I like the childlike quality of making pretend or the optimistic idea of pretending something's happening when it's not.
Laurel Nakadate
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I've always seen my work as trying to make the connection with men who no one really spends time with.
Laurel Nakadate
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I believe photography is about choosing to live, being brave. Looking is an act of courage. It's terrifying. It's possible to see too much, to witness things that we cannot hold.
Laurel Nakadate