I put down the camera long ago, you know? I was here in London, aged 19, and I was obsessed with my camera, shooting everything I could. Then someone stole it. It helped me to see things for the first time.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the transformative power of experiences over material possessions.
Forest Whitaker shares a personal revelation about how losing his camera, an object he was once obsessed with, allowed him to truly perceive the world around him. This experience emphasizes that sometimes, detaching from our obsessions can lead to deeper appreciation and understanding of life itself.
In practice
During a photography workshop, I shared a quote by Forest Whitaker to illustrate the importance of experiencing life without the lens.
As human beings, we all have reasons for our behavior. There may be people who have certain physiological issues that dictate why they make certain choices. On the whole, though, I think we're dictated by our structure, our past, our environment, our culture. So once you understand the patterns that shape a person, how can you not find sympathy?
I think that cinema and the arts are central in our lives because we grow up and learn about the world through our exposure to stories. Parents use them as a tool to teach their children fundamental truths and values, much as adults can view them to gain exposure to cultures and individuals that they'd never be able to view in their own lives.
In some sense, when you take a child soldier out of an armed group, you've taken away the identity he or she has had for years, and you can't assume life is just going to return to normal.
Cinema and the arts invite viewers to focus on a story and, in doing so, peel away its layers and peer into the depths of the human soul.
You try to pull away the experiences until you get to the core of humanity, and you find that light that exists in everybody. It's that light that I'm searching for in all of my work - is that connective thing, that ether that enters all of us - you know what I mean? That's a part of God.
For many child soldiers, war and violence are all they have ever known. If we don't take it upon ourselves to show them an alternative, then they're going to be soldiers forever, and they'll continue to be recruited and to participate in violence if another conflict starts five or 10 years down the road.
You have to have an idea of what you are going to do, but it should be a vague idea.
So that I saw music as a way of documenting realities from the urban cities of Latin America.
I want my buildings to take root and look as if they've always been there. It isn't about pastiche or adapting what's already there. It's about trying to blend the future and the past.
I am performing this role of the artist and this role of the 'negress' coming into a white-box institution. It's kind of a self-appointed role: the self-designated negress.
We shouldn't be copying what we see. We should try to find our own sense of style, to believe in ourselves.
Silence... is the essence of the music itself, the vital ingredient that makes it possible for the music to exist at all.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.