I was just reading the Chicago Reader email newsletter, and I came across this story about Chicago photographer Jason Lazarus and his Nirvana Project. Lazarus is collecting found photos of the “cultural mavens” who first introduced a generation of kids to Nirvana. Here’s an excerpt from the story (I think it’s from the Reader’s music column):
Lazarus is mostly dealing with people in a narrow agerange, from their late 20s to early 30s — old enough to have caredabout the alt-rock explosion, but young enough to have needed agatekeeper to guide them through their first revelatory experiences ofnonmainstream culture. His Nirvana Project focuses on that gatekeeper — the boyfriend, the friend of an older sibling, whoever — as a wayof addressing the universal adolescent experience of developing anindependent personal identity. Each piece is a blown-up print of theoriginal photo of somebody’s “culture maven,” accompanied by Lazarus’shandwritten version of the tale behind it.
Sounds very cool. There’s an email address where you can contact him.
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