Magali Duzant
Everything we thought
7 etched copper plates
from I Looked & Looked published by
Conveyor Editions, 2015 & 2023
On September 25, 1923, the artists Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz wrote to each other about the moon, from Maine and New York, respectively. Inspired by the synchronicity of this romantic exchange, I asked twenty creatives to describe the upcoming full moon, in anonymity, on the same night from vantage points across the country. I was interested in the possibility of a shared moment, to see what I could not otherwise, and to be told a story.
The night was October 29, 2012. Hurricane Sandy barreled through New York, and whilst elsewhere a bright silver orb hung in the sky, others searched for something else as the moon was hidden. The East River breached its banks, billions of gallons of sewage spilled into the surrounding waters, subway tunnels flooded, and the lights went out. The hurricane took 53 lives in New York state and gave rise to the term superstorm. After the storm, the city was quiet, littered with tree branches. People formed mutual aid groups and checked on their friends.
What began as an attempt to collectively describe the moon became a moment to look inward as much as outward. In moments of uncertainty and fear, it is important to fight for connection through the chaos, to combat dislocation with community, to look, and to record.
With time, the views captured that night shifted and oxidized. They remain as records of a moment shared between observers. The collection assembled here under the title, Everything we thought, speaks across time, urging a collective vision through these difficult times.
Magali Duzant is an artist and writer based in NY and Zürich. Using photography, writing, time-based installations, and artist books her work explores the ways in which we describe, inhabit, and share experiences on intimate scales both large and small. Publishing is a large part of her output, with projects ranging from newsprint zines to image-text publications that often revolve around themes related to the metaphysical, the natural world, and counterculture, viewed through a lens of humor, poetics, and romanticism.