Synkroniciti is pleased to feature the ekphrastic collaborations of Pittsburgh-based photographer Jason Baldinger and Robert L. Dean, Jr, poet, of Kansas. We’ve been lucky enough to have this wonderful duo in three consequent issues: “Curiosity,” “Broken,” and now “Space,” and Jason’s “Point Pleasant, WV” was our delightfully eerie cover for “Broken.” This time, we feature a group of collaborations entitled “Memory Space,” exploring three sights off the beaten path–an abandoned coal mining town near “Black Lick, PA,” (Dean, “Look Up”); a pile of trash that rises up like some sort of altar in the woods in “Dead Man’s Hollow Conservation Area, PA,” (Dean, “Dead Man’s Hollow”); and an old bar by the grain silos in “Blue Mound, IL,” (Dean, “Old Style”). These are places that are fabled in the surrounding territory, for everything from industrial accidents to murders in the woods to fist-fights and bank robberies. Jason captures them as they are in the early 21st century–you’ll have to dig to know more, which is part of his strategy. All of these locales are fading into myth as time marches on into an increasingly digital-dominated future. What does the human race, particularly the industrial manufacturing community of the last century, leave behind? How do we remember the past or do we remember it all?
Enjoy Jason’s fascinating black and white photos (along with Bob Dean’s remarkable poetry) in Synkroniciti’s November 30th issue, “Space,” Vol. 5, No. 4, available for purchase here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
Jason Baldinger is a poet and photographer from Pittsburgh, PA. He’s penned fifteen books of poetry the newest of which include: The Afterlife is a Hangover (Stubborn Mule Press) and A History of Backroads Misplaced: Selected Poems 2010-2020 (Kung Fu Treachery), and This Still Life (Kung Fu Treachery) with James Benger. His first book of photography, Lazarus came out this fall. His work has appeared across a wide variety of print journals and online. You can hear him read his work on Bandcamp and on lp’s by The Gotobeds and Theremonster.