For this A Visual Dialogue, we invited Australian Lisa Murray, the winner of our portrait award in issue #12 and whose work appeared in issue #9, and South-African D.M. Terblanche, whose work we featured in issue #11. They connect instantly, not only through the similarities in their artistic practices and project content but also through the life challenges they have in common. Throughout the dialogue, they navigate their personal stresses and changes, inspiring and supporting each other with their beautiful lyrical exchange full of spirit and certitude.

sitting together, worlds apart

Lisa:
Hello DM!!
Just WOW - I’m so inspired already to be paired with you!! Your work is stunning and so beautifully articulates that space in-between beauty & discomfort you mention in your interview. I believe the work I create comes from a similar place and from the inside out, rather than the other way around - perhaps it’s a neurodiverse thing, I’m not sure. In any case, I look forward to receiving your first image and exploring where this process of creatively working together takes us!
All the best, Lisa

DANI:
Hello!!
 Thank you so much.
I was so excited to learn that I have been paired with you. Your work is beautiful, personal, and vivid. It is a joy - I am incredibly excited to create this visual dialogue together.
I concur with what you are saying about working from the inside out, and the similarity in the ways in which we create. We both seem to use photography as a way to process life, and there is so much of your work that I relate to! Perhaps it *is* a neurodiverse thing! I feel a great sense of kinship with the work you do.
So, to get into the process: 
I am okay with creating the first image, but before I begin, I want to ask if you'd like to decide on a broader theme beforehand, and take it from there? Which leads me to ask: Is there anything you would want to process or explore during this dialogue? Where are you at in life, what would you be curious to "talk" about together? Personally, I have been processing the experience of exhaustion and burnout following the completion of a project, and navigating a lot of sudden changes that I am undergoing in life. Thematically, I am happy to follow your lead and to explore. I don't mind depth, and I don't mind a challenge. I am incredibly excited. Let's do this!
Usually, my work utilizes film, but due to the timeframe, I am thinking that I will work digitally or possibly utilise mixed media in this process.
Best, Dani

LISA:
Hi Dani,

Lovely to receive this, thank you.
 As you ‘don’t mind depth’ and asked if there’s anything I’d like to process for this dialogue I’ll be honest ...
For the past ten years I’ve been taking a medication called ‘Tamoxifen’ which blocks the natural production of the female hormone oestrogen. It’s been the final step in my treatment for breast cancer. 
I’m so keen to end this chapter of my life and have often wondered who I’d be without this drug in my system but, so far, I’ve found not taking it to be completely destabilising! (I’m an emotional wreck) and, as with closing any life-chapter, there’s always a layer of grief to process - like there is in coming to the end of any project. I also note that my anxiety rises as a new chapter begins and I head into the unknown...
So, it seems to me we are in a similar low place and navigating change, only coming at it from different directions! I’d love to explore this space with you. Initially I thought it would be wonderful to create work in film too as I shoot a lot of HP5 so can relate to your love for black & white but understand it’s impossible with the time constraints.
You know I love a bit of mixed media.
Let’s Go! 
Lx

DANI:
Hi Lisa!
I've been finding the words to respond but am sending the first photo in their stead. I took it this morning. There are days when words are difficult.
Thematically, it is in the line of "crashing anxiety/new beginnings/processing grief/aaaaaa!"
Colour… me surprised to find that I am working in, well, colour. I took this photograph with what was my first "proper" camera, Matilda. It is quite cyclical.
It is super okay if you want to shoot the HP5, or however you want - the reason I am not working in film is because I do not have the capacity to develop them at home right now. The turnaround time would exceed the project parameters. I am therefore stepping outside of the known - which is a bit exhilarating.
The photo I am sending can be perceived as quite intense. If it is too gory for you, I have a second option that would be less so.
No feet were hurt in the making of this photo though! This is a beet juice and raw egg combination. Looking forward to hearing back from you! Please let me know if you'd like to make adjustments!
 And so, we begin -

Best, Dani


LISA:
Hi Dani,
Love this. I feel your pain and discomfort. In response, my natural instinct is to try to soothe, to provide coolness to the hot I feel in your image. So, I began experimenting with water but in doing so, I realise I don’t want to mask the discomfort entirely, I also want to spend some time sitting with the pain/ the melancholy you’ve shared with me. Look at it, hold it and allow it to be what it is because it makes me feel and that state of ‘feeling’ is so beautiful...
I hope that makes sense!
I love that you are challenging yourself and working in colour for this dialogue, I’ll do the same and take on working with black & white, something I rarely do when working in digital photography.
This is fun. Lx

DANI:
Hi Lisa,
Beautiful. Your photo took me on a journey in its response. I was inspired by the sense of quiet, the thoughtful texture in your image. By the idea of holding pain. Back to the camera.
At first, I thought I would follow you into the water with photography. I took some images, blurry and textured, in an attempt to meet you where you are at in a more literal way. But it felt insufficient, messy - like many thoughts rolling into one. Most of all, it felt loud. I realised that your image inspires me to get still, and to also sit with the feelings that come up. Ever since you first wrote about your experiences with cancer, and with medications, and these beginnings as they are folded into the endings and its panics, I've been considering the body as it is mapped out by its parameters and restrictions.
While I cannot speak to the measure and intensity of the experience you have had with this, my body also harbours pain, and scary new beginnings. These last few years, I have often thought of my body as a place of discomfort: When is it not tired? When is it not in some way painful? When is it not keeping the score?
How difficult it is to be present in it.
The photo I am sending as a response is about something I've been thinking about a lot when I get still. That is, the body as a place of gender expression. The body as limited by the expectations set upon it. The body confined, in grief, in rebellion, in rage gone stale. The body outlasting itself, as an act of survival.
This photo is from a second set of photos I took today. It directly references Catherine Opie's "Self-Portrait/Cutting." Her photo considers queer identity, mine is about the body as trans. It is what happens when I sit with my feelings, as your photo inspires me to do. In this way, I feel we are sitting together, worlds apart.
Best, Dani

LISA:
Dani!

Your words and photograph moved me to tears (of course it did!), but on so many levels and for so many reasons.
I am familiar with Catherine Opie’s work - I stood in front of her ‘Self Portrait / Cutting’ for the longest time when her exhibition came to Heide Museum of Modern Art, here in Melbourne recently.
I was lost in it. Fascinated by how many ways my brain allowed me to internally respond - Shock, questioning, disgust, enlightenment, empathy, relatable self-expression, empowerment.... I watched my brain dance the parallel lifelines in wonder.
Your image has sent me in a million different directions too and it’s been difficult to settle on one idea to respond with.
In the end, I need to tell you that I am the mother of a transgender child, so I feel I know a little about what you might be going through on some level - The other day she said to me ‘I sometimes get sad I’m trans’ When I asked why? she simply replied 'because it would be easier if I was born a girl' and it struck me that she could have said 'it would be easier if I identified with my male birth sex' but she didn’t. It was in this moment I felt the complexities she must feel all laid out in front of her with great compassion. So, in light of this, I knew this piece had to be about gender dysphoria.
You so eloquently spoke of beginnings being folded into endings, which I have referenced in my image as it resonated with me so much. In relation to being gender non-conforming - My daughter is at the beginning, having socially transitioned for only two years now and you are older, at the other end of life. I am guessing you both might feel tangled in and smothered by the heavy emotions gender dysphoria brings with it at times. In referencing this I have collaborated with my daughter and photographed her hair.
I hope my image is beautiful in some way because, from where I stand, all I see is the unique and profound beauty the two of you share, worlds apart!
Best, Lisa x

DANI:
Lisa -
I have been in awe of your response these last two days. It felt like a gift.
I want to write you something eloquent, something beautiful. Something about the hope of being trans, the beauty of it. But I have a fever, and my birthday is in a few hours. My words feel stuttered again.
When I read about you and your child, and your experience, I felt such an immense sense of hope. I felt like sun-rays. I had no butterflies on hand, so instead, I picked flowers from our garden. This is all wrapped into the photo I am sharing. Sun-rays, shadows, flowers that make me think of our trans elders and youth alike. The idea of my birthday, something I want to mourn and bask in alike. Something I wish I could appreciate. The bold red I can't quite get away from this series, and the fever, which drapes an eeriness across the photo. Complexity. Survival:
I only came out about three years ago. I spent many years without words for my internal experience. I did not have a way to express how I related to the world. I was folding myself into compartments of understanding, with the hope that I would belong to them.
To be trans, is an experience with or without the words for it. But the words give us the ability to relate, to express, to form community with the world. In this sense, the biggest feeling I have is hope for your daughter, and for other trans youth. I pray and dream a beautiful life, where people are allowed the sheer beautiful complexity of what it means to be human.
I've been writing for half an hour, and I still don't know, how to say things.
So instead, please accept my next photo.
Best,
 Dani

(Note: My mom has been in all of the photos I've been doing for the collaboration thus far. She studied art history and has a really good understanding of art, and the processes behind it. If you see this, thank you Mom!)

LISA:
Hi Dani,

I’m so glad my image felt like a gift to you. Happy Birthday!!
 Your image in response is so vibrant and beautiful. Full of colour and hope, thank you.
At the beginning of this A Visual Dialogue, I wanted to work in black & white and have been interested by how colour has crept its way into the exchange. I feel like we began in a dark place and with every exchange we have lifted each other up. Metaphorically I feel we are like a couple of young lovers frolicking in the dreamy sunlight together, drawn to and inspired by each other’s work which I have tried to articulate, from the ground up, in my responding image.
In creating this image I’m struck by a personal realisation. Photography, for me, has become an effective tool to assist my brain to process information, both past and present. It’s become my art therapy and visual diary but I have never sat in a place of contentment and tried to create an image before so thank you for that new experience.
Over to you! Lisa x

DANI:
Hi -
Thank you
. Wow - I loved this image. I've been transfixed by it.
The sunset feels warm on my soul, the feeling of youth has me in awe of what it must be. It is a beautiful otherworldly space.
It makes me think of the film Aftersun - the idea of vacation, and the importance of yellow and blue. I endeavoured to follow you into this limbo world, but found myself off-centre of it, in a place where colours are muted, and the sun can no longer be seen, but there is a softness, and there is a holding of joy, the way you would hold a breath. A fairy garden.
In this collaboration, we have moved in-between and through so many gradients. We have picked up different things we are processing, examined them, and put them down again. Repeatedly.
 There is something deeply lovely about it.
I have also shared this realisation with you - photography is the way I process too. I think I used to take photos as a way to prove my existence to myself, to measure and pronounce, to have something solid and continuous and real. And that may still in part be true, but along the way, I have found myself talking to what it means to exist instead, and wandering into the scattered, torn beauty of it. Hungry to feel and to share and to create. And that's important. In life beyond creative expression, I do find communication difficult. It is only on the cusp of this particular tongue that I find words forming, in a way that does not suffocate me as much as regular means of expression do.
And sharing, in photography, is probably what it means to be part of this world for me. In that sense, I am incredibly grateful.
I appreciate this walk we have taken, it feels as if we have already travelled far, in these few days.
Best, Dani

LISA:
I love your portrait so much Dani!
The blue, the softness. It intrigues me in a gentle and safe way that allows me to stare directly at it. I find it very calming, centering even.
I agree with your sentiments about this collaboration and can visualise the roads we have travelled together like a map of the way my brain works (perhaps the way our brains work) Beginning in one place and shooting off in different directions, on tangents - discovering things to look at and examine together along the way, rather than following some linear pathway with the end in sight.
My responding image is made up of a recent scan of my brain - I created it from a tiny, low res, screen grab of my MRI. It’s a delicate brain and as I endeavour to understand the way it works more and more; I am learning to treat it with increased kindness. Building this image felt like I was piecing together a younger version of myself - Same brain but with a greater understanding of myself through my life-experiences, some of which I have cleverly stashed in unreachable places.
I am loving growing this body of work together, it’s so unpredictable in its direction! At some point we will need to title the exchange, which will be fun. Titles are like riddles to me in that they must consist of four words! I have created four photographic series that follow this rule, two of them have been released publicly (Through My Child’s Eyes & For Part’s Not working) I am still finalising the other two series (The Orange Blanket Chronicles & The Benefit of Hindsight) Feel free to either play along with my ludicrous self-imposed number rules, add to them, or break me out of it into uncharted waters....
Best, Lisa

DANI:
Hello hello!

You do a scan; I do an X-ray:
My mom was diagnosed with a brain tumour when I was twelve; it changed a lot of things, I was a caretaker. Last year she went for an operation to have an electrode placed in her brain. It was the first time in years that she has been in less pain. She is a cyborg now! These photos are adapted variations of the original scan, which showed the electrode placement. I was painting with shadows and with sparkly things. I feel like an ocean when I think about it all.
I love games and puzzles! Here are a few potential names I have found, adhering to the rules:
- Mindwalking Through the Garden 

- Interlude: Two Photographers Processing 

- A Small Season’s Walking 

- A Sudoku of Thoughts 

How To Spell Change. 
Thank you, as always, there is such a beauty to this collaboration.

Best, Dani


P.s. I am also learning about kindness, and kindness to the present self and the younger self. And unreachable places.
 When you share, I have realised it is more difficult to express the empathy I feel than to just feel it. And I do. I really do.

LISA:
Oh, I love this! 

A couple of things - I’m so glad your mum is still here and in less pain since becoming a cyborg Mum! Also, it makes total sense in the context of knowing this that the two of you are so close, it must be nice to have that. 
I love that bodies carry stories of time past. I love your image; it inspired me to hunt down my X-Rays and see what I had and there are soooooo many!!
I decided to create a little collage which I have called ‘pieces of me’ I was going to list all the surgeries I’d had but the image looked too busy, so I left it a bit more abstract. 

Thanks for the title suggestions and for playing along with my funny little number game. 
How To Spell Change is sticking in my mind the most, it’s intriguing. I sifted through our email exchange for title cues and came to this extract - Sitting Together, Worlds Apart - You wrote it, I found it, so it feels a little of a collaboration and I think it perfectly encapsulates what we’ve been doing here together, do you think so too?

In any case, we are on our last image now and on track with timing. It’s been a wonderful opportunity for growth as an artist, I’m so grateful to have been paired with you!! 

Best, Lisa x 


DANI:
Lisa!! Wowie!
This is the last photo I send. I am a little sad but also happy for this collaboration and its process. It has been wonderful.
I was inspired by your collage and the idea of the body telling stories, to draw on my body. It was a cumulative image, like yours, and included a flower, one box of sudoko numbers, and a child in a school dress, but only the flower survived the process.
I agree that Sitting Together, Worlds Apart is a very pretty title. Let's go for that!
I will be putting all my images in a folder, in the correct format, to ease the process.
I send you all the joy, and all my thanks. Thank you for smashing through the ice of a new beginning with me, for telling various stories and parts of our lives, and for processing the world. It is a privilege to have been a witness to your stories and process. I am honoured and am smiling a big smile, even though I am also sad that it is coming to an end.
I salute you, in a fun and joyful way.
Best, Dani

LISA:
Oh Dani,
This is the final goodnight, which makes me a little sad because It’s been such a wonderful treat to collaborate with you, thank you so much!
I was a little nervous to take this project on but kudos to see-zeen for a great artistic pairing.
I will hold onto all the roads we travelled together with great fondness, it’s been such a wonderful learning experience both personally and in relation to my artistic practice.
Loved sitting with you, worlds apart. Until next time - here’s my final goodnight. Lots of love, always.

Lisa x

Following the collaboration we asked Dani and Lisa about the experience.

What was your personal experiences of A Visual Dialogue process?
Dani: The collaboration was very exciting, and refreshing. I experienced a sense of kinship with Lisa's process and work, and enjoyed the challenge of working digitally, in-colour and utilising mixed media for a change. Taking photos in a pen-pal type context was quite beautiful, although I had to come to terms with the way I sometimes struggle to communicate what I feel in words, in a social context - the photos were much easier. I appreciate Lisa, her work and her willingness to explore the topics with emotional depth, to take risks and partake in this adventure. 
Lisa: I was honoured to be asked to participate in A Visual Dialogue and was thrilled to be paired with DM!
I was amazed at how quickly we found a rhythm together - taking a day with each exchange to sit with and respond to the other person’s work. Dani's images would instantly kick my brain into a spin of creative ideas and endless possibilities. I needed to work hard at settling on one idea and executing a response in a short amount of time. I loved the buzz of knowing an image would likely be waiting for me when I woke up the next day and equally loved the short reprieve in having to create once you’d sent an image across. It was a perfect rhythm!

How do you feel about the outcome?
Dani: I am pleased, I am happy. 
Lisa: I’m so happy with the body of work we created together. It’s so varied within itself and illustrates a real kinship and connection I think.

How will it affect the way you work, or think about making work in the future?
Dani: I am interested in exploring the delightfully brash, risk-taking side of things for one of my next projects. While it is still early days, I believe the process will involve the possibility of some colour, and the possible use of mixed media, at least in the experimentation stages. This collaboration helped to shake me out of a state of burnout and exhaustion, which I had been in since the completion of my last project, Holyday. In that sense, I remain thankful. As for collaborations, I adored this one, and generally enjoy the process of co-creating work. It is something I am open to in the future. 
Lisa: Making work in this way has taught me so much about myself, my creative process and the way I run my art practice. It made me realise that I’m a bit of a hoarder - I make a lot of work but then I sit on it - mull over it, make changes to it and sit on it again, often never allowing myself to share it publicly. However, with the short time frame this project needed to be completed in and with the time differences in our locations it was impossible to work in my usual way. I learnt to both develop and discard creative ideas a lot faster and got waaaay better at sending images I’d created from a really personal place out in to the world, caring less in knowing they would be published. Learning to let go of the anxiety I tend to struggle with in sharing my artwork publicly was liberating. Thank you see-zeen for the opportunity to better understand this about myself.
Dani and I found so much commonality in both the way we create and the topics we were exploring together through this Visual Dialogue, I think we can both imagine collaborating together again in the future. Time will tell...

lisa murray @lisamurrayphotos
d.m. terblanche @d.m.terblanche

more visual dialogues