We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jordan Rathus. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jordan below.

Alright, Jordan thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

My Travelogue Series has been a really generative creative endeavor for me. After making experimental travelogue films in Finland (‘No Comment’) and Panama (‘Based on, if any’), curator Meaghan Kent connected me with artist/curator Margrethe Aanestad. Their organizations generously co-hosted me in Stavanger, Norway while I began filming ‘That’s Why I’m Here.’ Following my Stavanger shoot, I continued on to Reykjavik, and then The Hudson Valley, where I was an artist in residence at Catwalk Institute.

These films and installations feature improvisational performances that comedically guide the viewer through prefabricated tourist experiences, but they also have truly earnest moments of longing for the ‘far.’ The term ‘Fernweh,’ which was the title of my first exhibition of these films, describes this feeling of wanting a distant experience. The tone of these works oscillates between sarcastic and solemn, which I think refers to the complexity of emotion involved in the experience of travel.

I recently launched a travel advisory service called There Now Please, which is completely inspired by my experience of traveling as an artist and filmmaker. We are working on developing a roster of artists, historians, and academics who have specific interests in different topics and regions… for example, we are in talks with a Classicist, a Modernist, and even a National Parks Specialist. The idea is to pool together our community of creative thinkers and makers to produce experiential moments for people with different backgrounds and interests.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I was always an artist. Growing up, I studied and performed Classical Music, I acted, I wrote poetry and plays, I took photos, and I drew all the time. I don’t think there was ever a question whether I’d end up doing something creative… I just think that the question was how, or in what form. I was fortunate to have really supportive parents who let me stay up late painting pictures and writing poetry all over my bedroom walls. I attended a 16mm filmmaking workshop at La Fémis in Paris when I was 16, and that is when I realized that film was a really great medium for me. My mother saw it as well; we spoke about how film really made sense for me, because it was an art form that combined pretty much all of my creative interests and passions, and turned them into one cohesive, tangible form. I could compose original music, write a script, perform a role, frame a shot, and then cut it all together.

I’ve been fortunate to be able to attend both a traditional film school (NYU) and also an MFA program in Visual Art (Columbia). When I was at NYU I felt allergic to creating a traditional narrative film, yet by the time I left Columbia I understood more clearly that I would be tying concept to narrative in a way that was emotionally relatable to the audience, even if it was parodic or disorienting. I think that finding words to describe these ‘in-between’ tones that I loved to create was really helpful… I liked my projects to live somewhere between silly and dead serious. Now I have a lot less worry about what genre I am creating; I am letting my work just be its methodically chaotic self.

Traveling is an inherently eclectic experience for me. I enjoy the weirdness and the surprise of travel; the mismatches, the hidden details, the offness, the aesthetic totality, the stark beauty, the lush vistas, the unmet and met expectations. I think newness is our best teacher. I like to think of There Now Please’s traveler-clients as ‘moment collectors;’ collectors who are experiencing various travel destinations through the eyes of artists whose work they might admire.

My Travelogue Films, while often having fun with the role of the tourist-documentarian, also celebrate the wonder of meandering amongst the unfamiliar.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Most of my professional and creative life has involved working on a diverse slate of projects, in various capacities. As I’d flow in and out of various creative and managerial roles, the act of pivoting, itself, is what emerged as the constant in my career, for a time.

Adding, changing, and adapting is an art form in itself, and I think it’s important that young creative people are able to feel confidence within this kind of multichannel career. Pivoting can be seen by many as avoidance or failure, but I actually think that having the ability to shape-shift and rethink one’s own professional identity signifies a healthy relationship with change and learning.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

Building strong friendships with collaborators and fellow artists around the world is the most inspiring part of being a creative. Being in the classroom as a film/media educator is incredibly rewarding. It is through conversation and experimentation that we are able to explore possibilities we didn’t know were there.

Contact Info:

• Website: jordanrathus.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/therenowplease
• Other: therenowplease.com https://linktr.ee/therenowplease info@therenowplease.com

Image Credits
main photo credit is Krys Fox