The Art of Curation - Why we need sensibilities
On curation, homecoming and the creative practice
This week, I share a project I worked on with photographer Colin Dodgson. The enquiry was to contemplate national parks in the US and embody who gets access to these places and why. It’s a contemplative look at Yellowstone, which was home to many indigenous tribes—including the Kiowa, Blackfeet, Cayuse, Coeur d’Alene, Shoshono, and Nez Perce—who were forcibly removed from the land in the name of “conservation.” Published in Atmos vol 7, Prism, you can read the full story here.
Hi fam,
One of my favorite writers of all time is James Baldwin. Whenever I feel lost or blocked, I turn to essays—they provide a more nurturing message than the news, feeling like a delicious, soul-warming meal.
Baldwin moved to Paris at 24, leaving behind a United States drowning in its fallacy of grandiosity. In a profound conversation with Nikki Giovanni, he explained why he left:
"I was trying to become a writer and I couldn't find in my surroundings a certain stamina, a certain corroboration that I needed."
As a young, Black, gay man, he felt racism and homophobia were suffocating his creativity. But Baldwin's wisdom goes deeper. He realized you can't truly escape yourself or your responsibilities:
"There was never any way to leave America... I'd be a fool to think there was some place I could go where I wouldn't carry myself with me."
I felt incredibly identified with his message, especially now, having just moved to Paris myself. Juggling new situations, I've been meditating on what it means to truly live—whether that's finding the perfect French yogurt or understanding my creative purpose.
I’ve also been struggling to find the intention of my Substack without making it something that is not… authentic, that is not me.
My good friend Andy Adams sparked a community dialogue about my newsletter's identity. Barrie from Feasts and Fables offered wisdom that struck me: "There's always a risk that we overthink it, trying to hone our presence into a single something."
And then it hit me: I was buying into the capitalist notion of narrowing my complexity. As John Berger beautifully writes in "Ways of Seeing": "Capitalism survives by forcing the majority, whom it exploits, to define their interests as narrowly as possible."
So here I am, embracing my multifaceted self.
My intention with my Substack
I consider myself a sensitive person, a curator of sorts. I’ve worked in photography and music for over 10 years and want to share a lot of what inspires me with you.
I want to reflect on sensitivity—on what's worthy of being shared. In a world that thrives on making us feel less than, I'm done with fast-food social media and algorithmic life hacks. I want the antidote.
As someone who's moved countless of times, escaping my inner sense of self, getting lost and finding home again and again, I want to share my meditations on what building a non-coherent sensible map could feel like.
I want to share a valid sensibility. In the words of Susan Sontag, something is good not because it's achieved, but because it reveals "another experience of what it is to be human."
My mission? To inspire you—artist, photographer, musician, writer—to curate your own life. To create sensibilities that resonate deeply. To become the anti-algorithm, embracing a more human, analog approach to creation.
I offer connection, I want to live at the edges of the algorithm and want to invite you to that place of shared experience.
Reflection: I want to encourage introspection and self-discovery.
Guidance: I want to also offer practical tips and tools for creative growth and purposeful living.
Support: I want to be a mentor for you and your photographic or creative journey.
But Lola, what does deep-ecology got to do with everything? Ha!
An ecological Curation: A Deeper Perspective
This is where things get juicy.
For me, curation is more than selection—it's creating meaning, preserving narratives, establishing connections. In deep ecology, it becomes a practice of attentiveness, listening to the intricate stories woven through landscapes and living systems. So, you will see everything in this Substack wrapped in the all-encompassing philosophy of deep-ecology.
Curation as Homecoming
Just as Baldwin understood that we carry ourselves wherever we go, I've realized that curation is not about creating a perfect, static landscape. It's about crafting a living, breathing map of belonging—a dynamic cartography of self and experience.
Curation, then, becomes a radical act of homemaking. Not home as a fixed place, but as a continual process of gathering, arranging, and making meaning. It's about creating spaces—both internal and external—where complexity can breathe, where multiple narratives can coexist.
Like Bayo Akomolafe suggests, we might discover "a more thrilling exquisite home that your present language cannot accommodate." Curation is the language of that discovery. It's how we translate our scattered experiences into a coherent, yet wonderfully imperfect narrative.
What I've always wanted was simple yet profound: to share beauty, carefully curated. Not a perfected beauty, but a real, lived, complex beauty—the kind that breathes, changes, and tells intricate stories. The kind of beauty that doesn't just represent home, but actively creates it.
This love letter—in the shape of weekly postcards—is for the creatives, the weirdos, the entrepreneurs, the composers. It's for anyone seeking to curate a life that feels like coming home to oneself.
So thank you for being here. Tell me in the comments or through email:
What inspires you? How are you living a curated life?
Until next time,
Lola
Thank you for reading and following. This has be an “exquisite home” that I want to keep nurturing. Community, is everything and it’s what propels the work that I do. The words that I share.
If you want to support this work, let me know the ways in which this places has nurtured you, too. I read all emails. You can also buy me a coffee or become a paid subscriber for weekly curated mixes (this week: when Jazz became House, cozy jazzy soft house), and access to all my mood-boards, plus much more.
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