Jessica Helfand

Jessica Helfand|The Self-Reliance Project

Tracing

Tracing is a way to think in stages, and seeing those stages pulls you along in your thinking.

Jessica Helfand|The Self-Reliance Project

Animating

As an artistic practice, animation is a process of aggregation. But as a life practice, to animate is to awaken.

Jessica Helfand|The Self-Reliance Project

Helping

It’s time to pierce the routine of the everyday. What else is there to know?

Michael Bierut|Audio

Episode 125: Zoom Aesthetics

Zoom aesthetics and COVID-19; Kyle Chayka on minimalism; Deborah Berke on shared spaces; Jessica Salfia’s poem “The First Lines of Emails I’ve Received While Quarantining”; Megan O’Grady on artistic recluses

Jessica Helfand|The Self-Reliance Project

Waiting

To wait inside is also a chance to go inside—and stay there for awhile.

Jessica Helfand|The Self-Reliance Project

Admitting

Productivity is a tonic for loss—not a replacement for it—and the work of reconstruction is always brutal.

Jessica Helfand|The Self-Reliance Project

Assimilating

What becomes of public space when we’re absent from it—when our familiar human constellations cease to exist?

Jessica Helfand|The Self-Reliance Project

Reading

Reading is one of life’s great indulgences, even (and especially) if you are stuck inside.

Jessica Helfand|The Self-Reliance Project

Reciprocating

Reciprocity is not binary—it’s fragmented—like people are, and like life is.

Jessica Helfand|The Self-Reliance Project

Turning

Turning is a deliberate and conscious act: it’s how we express attentiveness.

Jessica Helfand|The Self-Reliance Project

Walking

Walking is a form of creative trespassing, like tourism for the psyche.

Jessica Helfand|The Self-Reliance Project

Responding

Responses are reactions, and reactions demand attention.