Cig Harvey: ‘I would arm wrestle any photographer who says they're not romantic, it's inherent to the medium.’
The Emerald Drifters photographer tells us how to see beauty in everyday life, why cakes can be art, and what happened when she asked literary sensation Ocean Vuong to write the afterword in her new book.
Over the past two decades British-born, US-based fine-art photographer Cig Harvey has instilled a sense of awe in thousands of art lovers, via her fantastical, narratively rich imagery, which is strongly rooted in the natural world. Harvey occupies a special niche in the photography world, appealing to such a broad spectrum because she is not afraid to engage and reflect the rich concept of beauty in her work with a light touch.
Many have fallen under her spell, including the award-winning novelist and poet Ocean Vuong, who contributes an essay to her new book, Emerald Drifters in which he writes, "In Harvey’s hands, the concept of the beautiful “becomes the vehicle for self-knowledge.”
Raised on the rural Moors of Devon, England, Harvey received her MFA from Rockport College in 1999 and has since had her work featured across a wide range of media including: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Vice, Vogue, The Sunday Times, The Independent, Marie Claire Italia, and New York magazine. In 2021, Monacelli published Harvey’s monograph, Blue Violet, that went on to sell through four separate printings.
As we prepare to publish her new book, Emerald Drifters we caught up with Cig to ask her about the new book.
Tell us about this new book Emerald Drifters, and how it relates to Blue Violet While I think of Emerald Drifters as a companion book to Blue Violet, in many ways it's completely different. It's about seizing the day, trying to elevate the ordinary, and almost the mundane in many ways. It poses the question: how can we live being in tune with the beauty in everyday? That doesn't mean buying expensive things, it means paying attention to the light, to the sunset to, a smile from your kid, these smaller moments.
Skyline & Lights - Cig Harvey
It analyses just how precious life is, and how beauty can be a tool to live a more intentional life, in which you actively seek out beauty and focus on it. Trying to actively seek out these simple everyday things leads to a change in perspective. And we need that now because the world's on fire. It is to take control of the things that we have control over and use that as a tool of bringing people together, to foster a conversation, to find common ground as opposed to complete separation, which is how it feels, particularly in America right now.
Wisteria - Cig Harvey
Your writing in this book seems more to the fore and, alongside the visual imagery, questions what actually art is – from a piece about the death of your dog to the photograph of a friend engulfed in wisteria. I think what I'm trying to do with Emerald Drifters is this idea around, what is allowed to be the content of art? What is serious? There's this idea of flowers not being taken seriously, or cakes not being taken seriously, even colour not being taken seriously, it’s seen as frivolous, feminine. But actually, when you look to it that there's all this incredible history around these things, and it's linked to sexism and gender inequalities and colonialism. Flowers are dismissed as somehow not important. Someone said, 'oh, I don't want to read something about a dog on its last legs, it's not serious content for art.' And I was like, 'Jesus Christ, really? This is all we've got. We've got our relationships, we've got our neighbours. If we don't have this, what do we have?
Dark Cake - Cig Harvey
I am very proud of the writing in this book. Obviously I'm mostly known more for my photographs, but writing is an equal share of my time, passion, and love. I feel like it's already getting some recognition. The writing is coming into its own. I definitely felt a connection with my writing in putting together this book, that it was on a different level than the others.
How did you settle on the title? There's a piece of writing in the book, which I think is, in many ways, a capstone for the idea of the book. It's called Emerald Drifters in the book, it's one of the vignettes. It's a story of phosphorescence, but it's also the story of this terrible, crime and murder that happened in Bermuda when I was living there. So in many ways it pulls together; it was in this area of Bermuda that is really beautiful, called Ferry Reach and the torture and murder of a girl called Rebecca Middleton there.
There’s a natural phenomenon that occurs there, exactly fifty seven minutes after sundown following a full moon. All these glow worms appear - to the minute. How is this even possible? It’s this magic of the world, this phenomena, and it creates this emerald pathway. And so, that piece of writing led into the idea of Emerald Drifters.
The Meadow - Cig Harvey
Did you already have an existing group of photographs and pieces of writing when you set out on the book? I just make pictures, and I write, and I make pictures, and I write. It's a very intuitive creative process, I don't know what I'm going to end up with. And then slowly it starts to form into a shape. It seems that it takes me four years to make a book, and really it’s in year three that I'll start pulling it all together.
Blue Violet set out with a thesis to make work about flowers that obviously wasn't about flowers. It was about living and dying. And it’s the same with Emerald Drifters, I didn't intend for all the writing to be about colour. That's just what happened and then I was like, well, that's a wonderful metaphor for looking at life, and looking at colour because colour is all around us, and it's free, and it's accessible to all, and we can recognise beauty and colour. It's also just so fascinating historically.
I love the discipline of trying to make a book that explores one idea. Obviously this particular idea is what it is to live a life and be human, so that's an enormous subject. But using the brackets of colour for the text… I think that it's a good challenge to have, and I think it makes for a more cohesive book. I don't want my books to be just a greatest hits, not that I have anything against that, but for me, I want there to be this story with a start, middle, and end.
Compost & Cake - Cig Harvey
How do you assemble the various parts? I think that part is always so interesting. As an artist I love finding out how do other people do it? The ins and outs, right? Almost demystifying the process, because it sometimes feels like art is left to the ether, and I think that does it a disservice. I love demystifying, removing this artist’s cloak. It's actually just this labour, day-to- day. I have a studio in a town about six miles away. And I print out the prints and I’m really old school, and I print out the written vignettes, and then lay them all out on the floor. It's like a puzzle and I move them around and then it works. The business of getting through the day and living is hard and mind mapping is a way, for me, to access what's inside, and to get it out, and to make it seen.
There's always a moment where it feels like it's never going to work. it’s an insurmountable task. With Emerald Drifters, it's painstakingly sequenced in terms of colour. So it has this kaleidoscopic prism-like feel to it. There are many different elements that are running through it at the same time. I don't want people to be lulled by the book. I want moments of surprise.
Do you attribute your love for photographing the natural world to your childhood, on the moors near Devon? Is that where it started for you? I think so. I think we change much less than we think we do, and I do think we are formed at an early age. I think about the things that I was concerned with as a kid, and I see it there. I see this obsession with colour, I see this obsession with trying to create beauty and so I definitely think I definitely think living in Maine is no small part of my work. I think it's a major part of my work. And I think that growing up in Devon, on the moors, is absolutely part of the ingredient. I can't articulate why, but it's inherent there in the work.
The Cherries - Cig Harvey
Are you a romantic at heart? Of course, I think that all photographers are. Actually that will cause some people to disagree, so I'm going to say a lot of photographers are. I think with this idea of photography, time is our currency. We are always trying to stop time to get a better look at it through a physical print; or slow something down. The act of photography in many ways is the act of remembering. I would arm wrestle any photographer who said they're not romantic, because I think it's inherent to the medium.
Ocean Vuong’s writing in the book is so powerful. How did you originally come across his work? Years ago when his first poetry book came out, Night Sky with Exit Wounds, I read it and loved it. And then On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, his debut novel. Somehow I ended up with one of the first copies, just when it came out, and I loved that too. His new book is coming out in May. The Emperor of Gladness and it's extraordinary. It needs to win the Pulitzer. It's so good. I think he's an incredible writer, one of the most powerful writers of our time. The way he talks about beauty on earth - it changed me.
So cut to a few years ago, I saw that he was following me on Instagram, and I was like, oh my God, what? It ended up that we had a friend in common who said, ‘Oh you guys need to meet’. We ended up messaging each other, and then we met, and then we went book shopping and our friendship has ensued. And so I asked him if he would write the essay for the book, and he said yes. He is an incredible photographer too. We’ll go back and forth on pictures. It's turned into this beautiful friendship.
Scout & the Peonies- Cig Harvey
Bound in a vivid silkscreened cloth case with colourful end papers, Emerald Drifters is a one-of-a-kind, vibrant catalog of pleasures and heartbreaks, and, as Harvey writes, “an urgent call to live.” If you’re quick, you can pre-order a signed copy here. The book ships in March. Meanwhile, Blue Violet is available here.
