Appearing in Swett's new essay collection, The Picture Not Taken: On Life and Photography, and also in the Winter 2024 issue of Orion Magazine, Swett's essay "Some Observations in the Galapagos (and Elsewhere)” explores the visual and philosophical suggestions of Negroponte’s 14-minute 2021 film A World Before God—a transportive romp with creatures under water and above who, unafraid of humans, seem to ask us to question who we really think we are. A screening of the film will be followed by a reading of the essay—and a short conversation and questions.
About the Artists
Michel Negroponte is an award winning filmmaker who has been making feature length documentaries for more than 40 years. His films have been screened at the Sundance Film Festival, the New York Film Festival and countless others. JUPITER’S WIFE, a portrait of a beguiling homeless woman named Maggie, won a Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and the prize for Best Feature Documentary at the Vancouver and the Santa Barbara Film Festivals. The film was also awarded an Emmy for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Documentary. It premiered on HBO/Cinemax before getting a nationwide 35mm theatrical release. His other films have been broadcast in the United States on PBS, HBO, and the Sundance Channel, as well as in England, France, Germany, Spain, and Japan. His work has been shown at the Sundance Film Festival, The New York Film Festival, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and in festivals in Berlin, Rotterdam, Vancouver, and Japan. In addition to his own work, he has worked in a producing capacity on many films, among them the Academy Award-nominated CHILDREN UNDERGROUND by Edet Belzberg, MANHATTAN, KANSAS by Tara Wray, and ORTHODOX STANCE, by Jason Hutt. Michel has also taught in the graduate and undergraduate film programs at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, Temple University, the School of Visual Arts in New York City, and The Vermont College of Fine Arts.
Benjamin Swett is a writer and photographer whose books include the new essay collection The Picture Not Taken: On Life and Photography (October 29, 2024) and the photo-text narratives Route 22 and New York City of Trees (winner of the 2013 New York City Book Award for Photography). Recent essays have appeared in Agni, Arnoldia, Salmagundi, Orion, Prism International, and Fiction magazines. He was named the 2024 Larry Lederman Photography Fellow at the New York Botanical Garden. Swett is the author and photographer of guidebooks to the Hudson Valley and to New York City’s Great Trees, and collaborated with the singer/songwriter Heather Woods Broderick to produce the collaborative book/CD of tree photographs and songs Home Winds. A writer and photographer for the New York City Parks Department for thirteen years, Swett founded the Parks in Print program, which produced books, brochures, maps, and guides for parks around New York City’s five boroughs. He currently teaches writing at City College in Manhattan and is senior photographer for the Notion Archaeological Project in Turkey.