Mennonites: A biographical sketch

Graphis, Nov/Dec 2001 by Simeonov, Iana

Slackening the willfully unadorned, black slipcase and working loose the black cloth cover of Mennonites: A Biographical Sketch provokes the odd sensation of trespassing. Mennonites is Magnum photographer and seasoned war correspondent Larry Towell's chronicle of his unusual decade-long fellowship with several Old Colony Mennonite families in Canada and Mexico. The book's content and design conspire to shed an artful, reserved light on a world of guarded stillness.

Old Colony Mennonites, found in modest numbers throughout the world, follow more literally certain dictates of this Anabaptist-rooted faith, rejecting assimilation and secularization more fervently than do many of their religious brethren. For those whom Towell chose to portray, practicing strict separation from the world has resulted in irrevocable poverty, illiteracy and an often tenuous life as itinerant farm laborers. Captivated by their vulnerable otherworldliness, selfimposed social isolation, but remarkably unimpaired certitude, Towell began a 10 year, reciprocally warm, association.

His access was exceptional. Although photography is customarily forbidden, they allowed him to take pictures. Towell even accompanied several families in the pursuit of ever-elusive agricultural autonomy from his native Canada to other Old Colony settlements in Mexico. For Towell, this was a profoundly absorbing interaction and it is recounted with discreet warmth and admiration in over 100 black and white photographs, taken from 1990 to 1999, complemented by short journal entries.

Phaidon's penchant for exquisitely printed, atmospheric books is well served here. It is clear that the stark, documentary images of Mennonite families, isolated voluntarily through the austerity of their religious beliefs and involuntarily by the fierce consequences of poverty, have driven much of the book's design.

As a photojournalist who has spent many years documenting the ravages of war, poverty and displacement, Towell is no stranger to capturing the peculiar beauty often intertwined with the harshest of life's realities. His direct, unsentimental images derive their effect from the intensity of the subject matter, rather than any compositional artifice. When used to capture the unusually remote and detached existence of Old Colony Mennonites, whose present looks as though it is already in the past, the use of black and white adds a peculiar dimension of timelessness. Their outmoded dress, reliance on old-fashioned petrol or horse-driven machinery, and handsome, yet curiously homogenous physiognomy, further intensify this sensation. In fact, I found it hard to shake the feeling that a turn of the page wouldn't reveal a picture of Henry Fonda from John Ford's 1940 cinematic adaptation of The Grapes of Wrath.

This impression, played upon with deliberately poetic intent, has mixed results. Every aspect of the book enlists the archetypal opposition of black and white, them and us, have and have not. The photographs are printed on stiff, creamy paper and presented, uncaptioned, in sections portraying a particular family group, settlement colony or road trip. As they pass before our eyes in anonymous silence, the lack of captions (wallet-size prints with titles are appended) further accentuates the social disconnection and contrariety of Old Colony Mennonites. Sections commingle with Towell's informal, at times eloquent, on occasion terse, journal entries. In these short narrative bursts, printed on soft vellum, he recounts through "the silt of memory" some of the experiences and people that so moved and beguiled him. The dramatic contrast in paper makes for a notably pleasant physical distinction between looking and reading, and the choice of vellum is suggestive of leafing through a Bible, keeping the presence of religion, literally, at one's very fingertips.

Nonetheless, the combination of textures and materials, handsome and plain as they strive to appear, seem more in line with highbrow minimalism than homespun austerity. Mennonites feels quite unchaste, even sensuous, causing the peculiar sensation that one is experiencing something of Old Colony Mennonite life in a manner altogether unfamiliar and unnatural to those portrayed. Or, perhaps, it is a subtle lesson on the imperceptible richness of lives that, on the surface, appear meager and barren. For although Towell's narrative recounts numerous hardships and misfortunes, his photographs reveal surprisingly cheerful, smiling faces animated, galvanized, and even comforted, by those same consequences.

Mennonites: A Biographical Sketch, by Larry Towell, Published by Phaidon Press, 2000, 7-3/8" x 9-7/8", 292 pages, 119 duotones, Designed by Atelier Works, London, $60 (hardcover)

Iana Simeonov writes on the enticing, and frequently vexing, confluence of art, history and popular culture from her home in San Francisco. Born in Bulgaria, from whence her family was exiled, lana grew up in Tunisia-where her father was the president's official sculptor-came to America at 12 and studied in Paris. She has a regular column in a publication called Dialogue: Voicing the Arts. She has worked at Sotheby's, and was a dealer of contemporary art in California. Now as the Director of Program Development, she does strategic planning for the Poison Center at the University of California, San Francisco. She reviews the book Mennonites: A Biographical Sketch, page 14.