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Kate Sennert interviews this New York based experimental filmmaker, photographer and musician.

Experimental filmmaker, photographer and musician Mark Borthwick became well known for his award winning avant-garde fashion photography. More recently he can be found collaborating on films with such innovators as Mike Mills, Chan Marshal and Chloe Sevigny, as well as creating site-specific installations of his photographs, mixed with drawings and texts, frequently accompanied by performances, musical events and dinner parties. His perceptive and seemingly effortless images evoke the satisfactions of home, family and harmony with nature. Born in London, Mark Borthwick currently lives with his wife and two children in Brooklyn, New York.

Borthwick was interviewed at the time of his recent exhibition, IS MY NATURE MY ONLY WAY? at The Journal Gallery in New York by Kate Sennert, editorial contributor to The Journal, V, The Blow Up and Tokion. Sennet first met Borthwick at Alleged Gallery when "he threw some clothes on me and took some pictures." If you are in SF, you can view Borthwick's work in the current group exhibition at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in the group exhibition, Cosmic Wonder.

Mark Borthwick: It's all the same.

MB: It's just attaching yourself to that feeling. For me, it was an enormous awakening to realize that there was a certain period in my life, maybe five years ago, for the ten years prior to that, where I struggled between the idea of Here I am today, I'm writing, the next day I'm drawing, the next day I'm taking pictures, and the next day I'm with the kids. Because there was no time, I never gave myself time to actually edit the pictures, or analyze the pictures, and question what I was doing and I realized that I never wanted to attach myself to that question. That question was never involved in the way that I was working; I was never practicing the idea of trying to understand what I was doing, what I was putting out there. I just wanted to leave it for what it was.

MB: Yeah. It's the same with photographs; after a while you realize that… YOU have to see them.

MB: There was a separation, but there was a certain point when everything came together and I understood it. All of my friends were pushing me to do a restaurant or do something… and then the moment I stopped working commercially as a photographer, I realized that what was entertaining my life the most was the idea of bringing people together. So, whether it's a small dinner party at home or cooking for a hundred people, it's the same thing. It's giving people that opportunity to share that experience.

MB: No.

MB: I had to stop editorial photography for two reasons. First of all, there's a new wave of photographers out there and it's their generation's right to have those pages. I always had that luxury of being given twenty, thirty pages over and over again. And I started saying that it's time to give those pages to a new photographer. I had my time. And I wanted to experience a way of sharing the work in a different way.

MB: No. That doesn't mean that I don't want to participate in any magazine today. I got asked to contribute some pictures for the next issue of Purple, for instance, and I very happily will. But I was in fashion. I was always trying to find a new way of approaching how we use clothes, how we apply clothes, and how to attach myself to what it meant to be a fashion photographer. That was something that has always been very important to me. But I was placing too much importance onto continually putting myself in a position where I was questioning the industry. What is the importance of clothing? What is the importance of fashion? I think I lost that importance because I no longer believed in the industry itself.

MB: No, no, it's exhausting in the sense that you're continually put into a position of a student. You have these hypocritical fashion editors out there, a few of them that try to attain their rules and put that forth. I don't believe in any of it anymore and fashion itself has become extremely unfashionable in that sense. Especially today, I think it's amazing to hang out on stoops here, where we live and see there's another way. There's always another way. Magazines took such a step backwards over the last twenty years trying to close the door to the other way. And I'm always interested in the other way, and I attach myself to that, whether it's with the clothes, the music, the cooking or just the idea of bringing people together. There's so much joy to be had with the small little events that happen to you daily. Te last couple of days have been magical. I walk out of this place, vibrating at a pace that's just phenomenal. There could be two or three people walking down the street, could be a kid and its mother and they sit down on the floor and... that's very precious. That lasts forever.

Answering what you said before about reaching a larger audience again with this, that's what I'm interested in now. I'm not trying to make it bigger than what it is, but at the same time, I'm interested to see where it can go. I like putting myself in a position where I'm back at the beginning again, and just nurture that. It's so much less about me and so much more about communicating and listening to the audience and people around. Maybe that's what this is about: that I gave myself the opportunity to take a step out and just listen for a while.

MB: I spent a day recording right before the show (at The Journal). I'm going to open a little label called Wild Runner, so that I can share my friends' music as well. We have been recording all of the events [at The Journal] daily. We are getting them up on the net so people can download it and listen to each daily concert for free.

installation @ The Journal Gallery

MB: Yeah.
(Mark's website - http://web.mac.com/willshine/iWeb/Site/willshine.html)

MB: I'm not very good with that stuff, technology just baffles me, whole other world.

MB: Dave Aron, Scott Mau and Hisham have been working on a collective called Usun. We've been recording everything we do, but we haven't released anything yet.

MB: A Year and a half. But we will, over the course of this summer. We're going to be playing tonight, with Josh from Animal Collective. I am giving myself the opportunity just to be that free form, and aesthetically wild in a way. Obviously not just giving myself the opportunity, but anyone who walks in…there are no rules.

MB: I have got to tell you, the greatest thing about it is that I don't think about it at all.

MB: This is all happening on its own accord: to be able to give people the opportunity to feel like they can be part of it as well.

There is nothing more beautiful than to see students who are at that point in their lives, asking themselves, How do I become art artist? What side of myself do I become an artist with? Should I pursue photography, writing, painting? My idea is fundamentally, really, really simple: just to look at life and the simplicity of it. Instead of thinking about art, asking, What is art? Sadly it has been produced and overproduced to be this material. It's that moment where you arrive upstate, at the beach, and you're just like… [sound of exhilaration]. You feel yourself vibrating with everything around you. That's it. And I think if we can give ourselves the opportunity to wake up everyday and to feel like that and look at things like that, then maybe we will let go of this material idea that is a certain…I don't know…maybe it's just the teachings we have been told, so much of the educational system has just failed. I'm sorry, I have to run, [whispering] my mother's birthday. We can talk anytime!

MB: Lots of love.