An Illinois State University alum who has remained in Central Illinois hopes July Fourth isn't the end of the conversation about America's 250th birthday.
As Bloomington-Normal reveled in its first-ever drone show, plus big, noisy, pyrotechnic displays in town’s all over the region, Jason Lindsey’s own Fourth of July was pretty quiet.
“You know, we didn’t truly do much,” said Lindsey, a photographer and filmmaker currently living in Mahomet. “Luckily, our dogs made it through the night without a big issue.”
Lindsey made his latest short film, Unfinished, to prompt reflection about the state of the country in its 250th year.
“I feel like we’re at a pretty particular place in history for our country right now,” he said. “I think it’s really important to reflect and think about where we are, and where we want to be. Not only that, but how each individual person can make the country more the way they really want it to be.”
In Unfinished, a five-minute short film composed entirely of still images of American flags, Lindsey strived to present a bipartisan, apolitical message. Text, performed by voice actor Sarah Hunte, gently nudges viewers to consider if the United States is living up to its principles and ideals — in the promises made in America’s founding documents and the country’s efforts, throughout time, to question and challenge those whose responsibility it is to uphold them.
“I feel like there is a majority that wants the country to be more along the lines of… what the flag stands for: freedom for all and still having individual rights that are protected,” Lindsey said. “I personally feel like not enough people are saying what they want. And I think just simply stating what you want is a good place to start.”
Lindsey doesn’t remember the first photo he took of an American flag, but he remembers when he realized it had become a project.
“It was the year after Katrina,” he said.
Lindsey was on assignment in New Orleans and entered the city’s ninth ward to take photographs of the hurricane's aftermath.
“I saw this old, worn, tattered flag that had been there for a year after Katrina—that went through Katrina—and the neighborhood was still in disarray. When I was photographing that flag, I realized it was a reflection of the Katrina event, but also a recording of the history of it.”
Throughout his travels—Lindsey is primarily a nature and environmental photographer—he kept seeing worn-out, tattered and torn flags like that one, and at first, was bothered by it.
“The patriotic side of me, like, you’re supposed to have a flag that’s taken care of,” he said. “But the more I started seeing, the more I realized they reflected the realities of America. …Almost nobody lives up to their own values they set for themselves, even if we are trying. I felt like the flag was reflective of that in so many ways.”
