gravity is stronger here

GRAVITY
IS
STRONGER
HERE
“Phyllis Dooney’s project, ‘Gravity Is Stronger
Here,’ is very intimate, very comfortable. It feels
like there’s no preconception, there’s no agenda to
the photographer, good or bad. You feel you get to
know Halea. It feels direct and unmediated.”
— JAM E S E STR I N, Lens bl o g co-editor
GRAVITY IS STRONGER HERE, a multimedia documentary project, was launched when photographer Phyllis Dooney
travelled down to Greenville, MS in 2012 and met Halea Brown in a local karaoke bar; Halea is outspokenly gay, devout,
talented, charismatic, and generous. Through her, Dooney spent the past 5 years documenting Halea’s entire family, who are
candid in this project about things like addiction, domestic abuse, money, solitary confinement, gay life, love, and faith.
Greenville sits riverside in the Mississippi Delta, and represents the American boom town—a geo-political force in the 20th
century—that has been working towards a second coming in a challenging economy. Intoxicated by the muddy, redolent Delta
air, local people say that gravity is stronger here, that gravity binds them to this place where storytelling and individualism
flourish.
Dooney’s journey is one into the American collective consciousness, via the portal of one particular family. This experimental
we hope you’ll
join us for us, it’s an
outward
appreciation for
the tapestry that is
American life
documentary project is built to be kinetic: a story that unfolds over media platforms, in permutations of documentation and
imagination.
STAY POSTED !
And it’s almost finished!
The prose/image collaboration between writer Jardine Libaire and Dooney is slated to be published in an art book, titled
Gravity is Stronger Here, by Kehrer Verlag in Europe (Dec. 2106) and in the US (Apr. 2017). Libaire’s prose pieces complement and counterpoint the images, using details that she gleaned from trips to Greenville, as well as lines excerpted from
And of course we’ll send you insider
tidbits as we make our way to the
r e l e a s e o n D e c 1 , 2 0 16 !
interviews with the family. The content was researched and collected with the accuracy required by nonfiction, but the
employment of the quotations and facts is closer to poetry, resulting in a story with enough space to honor contradictions and
open-ended questions. Online multimedia components, including intimate interviews and even unexpected amateur music
videos, will launch in conjunction with the European book launch.
Together the book and web elements portray an American family today who dream out loud while fighting the silent
undertow of poverty, domestic and cultural narratives. The delivery is nonlinear, but the Brown family are powerful characters,
and their story pulls in the reader like any great American tale.
PHYLLIS B. DOONEY is a New York City based
photographer and visual storyteller. After
graduating from Pitzer College, she began her career
as a photo art director in the commercial sector.
Currently, Phyllis works as a social documentary
photographer. She attended Eddie Adams XXVII in
Autumn 2014. Her work has appeared in The New
York Times Magazine, The Atlantic’s CityLab, The
Boston Globe, Feature Shoot, The Huffington Post,
Prison Photography, American Photo and elsewhere.
Phyllis’ project “Gravity Is Stronger Here” was recently
awarded first place in The Center’s Editor’s Choice
category. She is a Screen Projects’ mentee and was
accepted into the 4th annual New York Times Portfolio
Review in 2016.
J A R D I N E L I B A I R E has an MFA in Writing from
the University of Michigan, and was a winner of the
Hopwood Award. She is the author of the novel Here
Kitty Kitty, Little, Brown & Co., 2004, 2005, and the
book series The Upper Class, under the pen name
Carolyn Says, HarperCollins, 2008, 2009. She has
written for: Elle, New York Magazine, BlackBook,
Men’s Health, Self and others. Her newest novel,
White Fur, will be published by Hogarth / Random
House in May 2017, and will also be published in
France at Presses de la Cité, as well as Weidenfeld
& Nicolson / Orion in the UK. White Fur has been
optioned and is in development for a cable television
series.
M O R E O N O U R STE LLAR TEAM:
BOOK EDITOR: Alison Morley
BOOK DESIGNER: Ramon Pez
VIDEO EDITOR: Michael Reich
GUEST VIDEO EDITOR: Joshua Banville
(SURPRISE) GUEST ARTISTS: Sara Jimenez, Dominick Rapone