What happens when you turn the page in the book of your life and it’s blank? Wayfinding is a short documentary film that follows the journey of two artists who learn to navigate from here to there in an uncertain world through loss, change and art.
Watch the finished version of Wayfinding above.
Like many people, I thought I had my life pretty well planned out. Until my world came crashing down.
In the past I had carefully figured out my next steps, the details of what I was going to do every time I changed jobs or careers. For some reason, when I left my last job, I turned the page in the book that was my life and it was blank. I was completely and utterly lost, unsure where to go next. I started to panic.
You might be hearing this from your friends, too. The month I finished this film we learned that the United States has fallen out of the top 20 happiest countries for the first time since a global ranking began in 2012. Among the 143 countries surveyed, the U.S. ranked 62nd for people under 30. Similar findings have emerged in Britain and Canada.
I tested my own type of aversion therapy, finding a place in New York City with no discernible landmarks where I could get lost over and over again and try to calm my panic through repetition. I came to understand why Frederick Law Olmsted, the designer of Central Park, created just a place: “This was the Ramble, a wild garden, densely planted and laced with intricate pathways that crossed and then recrossed, switched and then switched back, until a person was hopelessly lost, and that was the fun of it.” (From Genius Of Place The Life of Frederick Law Olmsted by Justin Martin.)
Artist Lisa Lee Freeman also found herself lost after leaving a high level corporate position.
I discovered the work of the subject of my film, Lisa Lee Freeman, at her senior thesis art show in 2022. Her project was called How to Get Lost: A Manual and a Map. It was a mixed-media installation that included a book of essays and three large-scale, abstract artworks on paper and canvas.
It was her artistic answer to what I had been wrestling with on my own, a reflection of what I had been doing with my wayfinding.
I decided to make the film a collaboration, wanting to disrupt the traditional journalistic one-way street between filmmaker and subject where the filmmaker has all the control. I pitched the film and format to Lisa and shared transcripts of all of our conversations (we did no formal interviews). I shared all cuts of the film for her feedback.
In her previous life, Lisa was a very demanding magazine editor and TV personality, but as an artist she was the perfect collaborator. This film is my vision, but it’s influenced by our conversations and Lisa’s excellent feedback and ideas.
Caption for video above
One of the things I love about nonfiction work is that you never know what will happen during filming. It challenges you to turn mistakes and near-disasters into successes. It could be a rip or an accidentally crushed camera but only now do I realize that uncertainty—that getting lost and the challenge of figuring it out— is one of the things that draws me to this work.
I hope viewers can take away some ideas of how Lisa continually returns to being lost —starting each piece with a random pour of ink that it’s impossible to predict—as she creates her work. From making this film, I hope I learned to “navigate lostness,” as Lisa calls it. I still get lost in the Ramble, but I’m learning to enjoy it a bit more each time.