Unless noted, all images ©Kip Harris
Eleven
This is Dek Unu Magazine. In Esperanto, dek unu means "eleven." Eleven images from a single artist. Eleven artists in eleven solo issues each year.
Dek Unu publishes the work of a new photoartist in each issue. The artist's work and words are featured alone and in individual focus as the sole purpose for each issue of the magazine. Unlike other arts and letters magazines which might look for work from a variety of artists to support an editorial staff's theme, at Dek Unu, theme and imagery are always each artist's own.
As evidenced by the world total of tourist photos of the inside of cathedrals and through the windows of air-conditioned buses, a country’s visitors do not often see or walk the back streets. And as perhaps a similar number of credit card receipts might testify, interactions with cashiers and wait staff are far more common than real contacts with the locals. October’s featured artist, Kip Harris, presents images from his large, international, multi-year study of workers at their jobs. Drawn from his travels for business and pleasure, these are portraits of real people, in their own environments, free of pretense and staging for tourists and tips. Above and beyond his technical skill, and in spite of differences in language and location, Harris has acquired a knack for authentic personal engagement with his “locals” and his “cathedrals” are workshops and storefronts off the beaten path. Quoting from Prufrock, Kip says his subjects, encountered in their own workplaces, do not need “to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet.” These faces are striking in their honesty, their purpose, and their pride.
Harris grew up in a small farming community in Idaho. He holds degrees in English literature from Dartmouth College, in humanities from the University of Chicago, and architecture from the University of Utah. He was a principal of FFKR Architects in Salt Lake City for nearly 30 years. He now lives on the South Shore of Nova Scotia in an 1823 cottage overlooking St. Margarets Bay. He and his wife created Company X Puppets (a highly portable puppet, dance, theater group established to present intimate mixed media works).
