Casey Orr: Portraits of Anarchists
I’m updating the text and biographies: I’ve been researching some people and contacting others who I haven’t spoken to in many years, Googling and reading histories. I feel so honoured to have met these people.
Celebrating the work and lives of activists and artists who strive to make our world a better, more equal place feels to me essential and urgent in these troubled times.
I’m proud of these portraits. I’ve been photographing people for all of my life, exploring ideas and trying to understand our world through photographic portraiture. I continue to do this, without the buoyant youth I had 20 years ago but with more energy and urgency than that youth offered. As we grow older we understand the limits of mortality, the restrictions to fleeting time that growing families, jobs and responsibilities gobble up. I’m constantly aware of how precious my time is, how many more pictures there are to take, people to meet, ideas and places to explore.
I like this me that is older, determined and focused, deeply connected to the creative threads that I’m following. Revisiting this old work has allowed me to reflect on the way passionate, political people, radical ideas, art and photographic portraiture has weaved its way through my life and my work. Long may it continue.