Photographer Bethany Eden Jacobson and poet Cole Swenson combine images and poetic texts for a unique portrait of Green-Wood Cemetery.
About this Event

Help us celebeate the publication of a spectacular collaboration: Ode to a Cemetery: a meditative journey through Historic Green-Wood Cemetery (November 2024, Hirmer Verlag, Munich, Germany).

Join us for a unique online experience as photographer/filmmaker Bethany Eden Jacobson and poet Cole Swensen share and discuss their gorgeously evocative hybrid book project combining photography, original artworks, and poetry.

Green-Wood, founded in 1838, was a leader in the Rural Cemetery movement in America. Its 468 acres encompass magnificent grounds, grand architecture, and world-class statuary. Throughout four seasons, Jacobson’s book presents the spirit of this verdant, history-drenched pastoral cemetery.

Bethany Eden Jacobson captures the landscaped beauty of Green-Wood Cemetery in her color and black-and-white photographs of century-old trees, wonderful vistas, and time-worn statuary. Her cinematic approach is a visual meditation on the transience of life and the importance of nature to the human spirit. The book also includes reproductions of her unique artworks on handmade paper inspired by the female Victorian statuary. Throughout the book, Cole Swensen’s poetic words reflect on the imagery creating a lyrical interplay between image and text.

The artists will share a selection of images from the book along with a reading of some of the texts, combined with a conversation about the speical allure of Green-Wood Cemetery.

Order the book or ask for at your local bookseller.

Bethany Eden Jacobson is a photographer and filmmaker. A native New Yorker, she studied art from an early age. In the 1980s, she worked as a photojournalist, photographing such seminal figures as Wim Wenders, David Wojnarowicz, Iggy Pop, and Chantal Akerman for a variety of publications. She went on to study film and worked in the film business for many years. She has written and directed award-winning films which have been screened internationally. In the past five years, she returned to her passion for photography. Most recently, her focus has been on exploring alternative processes. Her work has been in group and solo exhibitions including: The Third Barcelona Foto Biennale in 2022; Gallery Onetwentyeight, New York City, in 2022; and E.V. Gallery, New York City, in 2023. She currently teaches at Pratt Institute and Brooklyn College.

Cole Swensen is the author of 19 books of poetry, most recently And And And (Shearsman Books, 2023), a collection of hybrid lyric essays on landscape art, Art in Time (Nightboat Books, 2021), and a volume of critical essays, Noise That Stays Noise (University of Michigan Press, 2011). A former Guggenheim Fellow and recipient of the Iowa Poetry Prize, the SF State Poetry Center Book Award, the National Poetry Series, and the PEN USA Award in translation, she has also been a finalist for the National Book Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the Griffin Poetry Prize. She translates poetry and art criticism from French and divides her time between France and the US.