Jason Gardner tells stories, using photography and video within the framework of Visual Anthropology. He is passionate about music, culture, and ritual, and how they impact human expression.

For over 15 years, throughout 15 countries, Jason has visually documented the ritual and festival of Carnival, focusing on traditional, folkloric, and community celebrations. His second book, We the Spirits, will be published by  GOST Books, UK (December ’23 Europe, Feb ’24 United States). In 2013, Jason published A Flower in the Mouth, a photobook about the culture, music and rituals of Carnaval in Pernambuco, Brazil (VA Press, USA).

In 2022, his project was selected as a Top 50 portfolio by Photolucida’s Critical Mass, and GEO Magazine France published a ten-page portfolio of his work. His photography has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, Financial Times, Sunday Times Magazine (UK), Rolling Stone, Le Parisien, Foto Magazin (Germany), New York Magazine, NPR.org, and SPIN Magazine.  

Clients include Con Edison, HBO, TED Talks, Dassault Systèmes, Electrolux, Grand Central Station, Samsung Corporation, N-Y Historical Society, Freshworks, Ogilvy & Mather, Direct TV, Pfizer, Big Brothers Big Sisters NY, and Human Rights Watch.

Other exhibitions include BY Chatel Galerie Paris; Cinémorphe Paris; Maison des Cultures du Monde (Vitré) France; Mairie XVème Paris; Audacieuse Galerie (Geneva); Bartcelona Gallery (Belgrade); Rayko Gallery (San Francisco, CA); Photoville (Brooklyn, NY); PhotoPlace Gallery (Vermont); Uma Nota Festival (Toronto); The Brazilian Consulates General of Los Angeles, San Francisco & New York; Art From the Heart Brooklyn; and the Brazilian Endowment for the Arts (BEA) New York.

He is a board member at-large, NY Chapter, of The American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP), and co-founder of creative networking community Toasted Almonds, having launched a Paris chapter of Toasted Almonds (Amandes Grillées).

Jason divides his time between New York and Paris. 

Par le biais de la photographie et de la vidéo, Jason Gardner est « anthropologiste visuel ». Américain d’origine et installé à Paris depuis quatre ans, Jason a des passions pour la musique, la culture et les rituels de tous les peuples. Il trouve l’ensemble de ces passions dans la tradition du carnaval. Aventurier, Jason a voyagé partout au monde pour photographier les carnavals de Bulgarie, Slovénie, Sardaigne, Bahamas, Guinée-Bissau, du pays basque et de la Nouvelle-Orléans.

En 2013, il a publié « A Flower in the Mouth » sur la musique, la culture et les rituels du carnaval de Pernambuco au Brésil. Ses œuvres sont apparues dans The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Photo District News, New York Magazine et SPIN magazine et sa liste de clients inclus HBO, Samsung et Human Rights Watch. Il travaille actuellement sur un nouveau projet intitulé « Au Retour de Carnaval : Rites, Racines, Rebels » qui a récemment été sélectionné pour le festival Mois de la Photo à Paris. Il a également montré ses œuvres au Lincoln Center, New Orleans Jazz Fest, The Brazilian Consulate General à Los Angeles, Vienna Photo Book Fair, Uma Nota Festival à Toronto et à Paris au Chatel Galerie et à la Mairie du XVème.

VISUAL ANTHROPOLOGY

In my practice, I document visually various aspects of a culture, and how it is celebrated, both venerating traditions and looking forward.

I am interested in what constitutes cultures and most especially how they are celebrated, from honoring traditions to envisaging the future. By focusing on cultural manifestations such as music, dance, festival, and spectacle, as well as symbols, street art, glyphs, costumes, or shrines in a closet, I capture the intangible, visually translating the symbolic connections of what might not be visible at first glance.

Placing my photographic practice within the framework of Visual Anthropology, I hope to tell stories by focusing on cultures, traditions and practices which often happen behind the public’s view. I capture things that build up to define the cultural milieu and community’s regional identities. I look for that ineffable moment of transformation in a ceremony, the traditional song or costume epitomizing regional pride and identity, a symbol representing a culture, these all combine to reflect the culture.

I wish to reveal some of the diversity of the spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional landscape of a community. Making the connections among the various manifestations, to show their relationship with each other, and how they interlock, helps to form my view of the culture I am documenting. These displays of culture are significant, to me, in that they represent one of the more profound ways that humans can express themselves.