Across Indiana
Crossing the Language Barrier | Classic Across Indiana
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In this 2006 episode, William Rasdell used photography and technology to celebrate life.
William Rasdell used art to explore life in the Americas. His travels to places like Trinidad, Puerto Rico and Cuba allowed him to quietly record stories of daily life. Bill used his camera like an artist's sketchpad, while adding his own perspective with digital tools like Photoshop. Rasdell passed in November of 2023, however his legacy lives on in the Indianapolis arts community.
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Across Indiana is a local public television program presented by WFYI
Across Indiana
Crossing the Language Barrier | Classic Across Indiana
Clip | 5m 10sVideo has Closed Captions
William Rasdell used art to explore life in the Americas. His travels to places like Trinidad, Puerto Rico and Cuba allowed him to quietly record stories of daily life. Bill used his camera like an artist's sketchpad, while adding his own perspective with digital tools like Photoshop. Rasdell passed in November of 2023, however his legacy lives on in the Indianapolis arts community.
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship- [Narrator] For over 30 years, photographer William Rasdell has been using art to explore life in the Americas.
His travels to places like Trinidad, Puerto Rico and Cuba have allowed him to quietly record stories of daily life in images rather than words.
This calling of using the faces, vistas and landscapes of a culture to tell the story of its people, began simply enough.
- From the very first camera that I got living in New York, I would go all around New York City and meet with people I didn't even know if I saw something going on, I was there.
And with my camera, I was able to get phot and use those photographs to almost study different cultures, learning what different costumes might mean, what different musical genres might represent.
So it became a study and it's almost become an obsession.
- [Narrator] Rasdell found himself drawn to recording the African in That fascination led him to an even of the culture and the spirit of the Cuban people.
- Cuba is an interesting blend, and one aspect of the blend that I'm most drawn to is how that African presence has become linked to the mainstream.
Its vibrancy in music and in dancing and food and just general living.
I think it's that whole spirit of that I get out of Cuba, and I think that's a very strong African contribut - [Narrator] Drawn to Havana by an interest in the Cuban music called rumba, Bill found himself - [Bill] It's not just a musical venue, it's not just an art gallery.
It's not just a place for to and part with their dollars.
There's a true community there.
That family has created schools, ar There is an herbalist in the compound.
There's just so much going on.
People come there for spiritual guidan People come there for just daily sustenance.
It's an interesting place.
It's a very spiritua The artist, Salvador Gonzalez has his studio in this space, and it's surrounded by these tenement houses that he's painted these fabulous murals on, some of them as much as six stories h And it's been an inspiration for a lot of the work that I've done.
- [Narrator] Bill says he uses his camera as an artist's notebook or sk His artistic expression comes after the film is de - But I scan my film into the computer and use Adobe Photoshop primarily to manipulate t to enhance the images.
There's one image, Back to Basics, I wanted to really emphasize the of the music that they were playing at that time with a variety of filters that I use, you really can feel the movement when you look at that image.
Yeah, the colors, you can see the excitement - [Narrator] Getting others to develop an appreciation of that feeling is part of Bill's mission back h As part of the new media workshop, a collaboration between Bill, the Martin Luther King Center, Urban Arts Indianapolis and the villages of In to help young people gain their own cultural insight.
- So the assignment that I gave out last week, I gave everyone a disposable camera across, and we're studying youth culture in a couple of different places, and it's a chance think about some things in a different way, to look at how they as a youth culture here in the United States are being perceived in other places and in particular, Cape Town, South Africa and Hav - [Narrator] In February, 2007, Bill will show all of his adventu in Callejon de Hamel when an exhibit of his photos goes on display at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.
Three decades ago, a young man stopped to fix a bicycle tire in Central Park and got a used camera as payme So if you believe in Providence, you might think Bill was destin From this chance encounter, William Rasdell came to live to bring back beautiful images of the cultures that enrich it.
But for him, it is much simpler than that.
It's a chance to share that life.
One-on-one with others both old and young.
- I have a good time, I've met some beautiful people.
I've had a chance to share those experiences with other people, and that for me
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Clip | 4m 13s | The Indiana Medical History Museum holds many oddities from a time long gone. (4m 13s)
Now PlayingCrossing the Language Barrier | Classic Across Indiana
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Clip | 5m 10s | In this 2006 episode, William Rasdell used photography and technology to celebrate life. (5m 10s)
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The Indiana War Memorial | Classic Across Indiana
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Across Indiana is a local public television program presented by WFYI