Close to the Bayou by Dimitri Staszewski is a profoundly moving exploration of art, connection, and resilience. Through intimate photography and thoughtful storytelling, Staszewski invites readers into the shared creative journey he embarked on with his mentor, Thomas Mann. The book’s poetic and beautiful images, rendered in soft tones and illuminated by masterful use of lighting, add a tender visual layer to its narrative. More than a tribute to Mann’s artistry, it’s a meditation on the transformative power of creativity in the face of life’s most challenging moments. - Sandrine Hermand-Grisel
When artist
Dimitri Staszewski found out that his close friend and artistic mentor, renowned contemporary jewelry artist Thomas Mann was diagnosed with cancer, Staszewski made the decision to support Mann through that process. During Mann’s three-month treatment, he continued making work at a frenetic pace while Staszewski started documenting the physical and emotional space they were sharing.
The resulting book, Close to the Bayou is a visual memoir of a unique, creative, and singular person—Thomas Mann. Simultaneously, it is a book about Staszewski and a thoughtful meditation on illness, uncertainty, mentorship, and how the physical self and geographies hold us and anchor our memories.
A year into the project, as Staszewski prepared to finish the book, life mirrored itself as he was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 29. As his own medical journey began, the work he had created suddenly took on greater meaning. The question the book asks, “What does it mean to be close to the bayou?” was something he was forced to ask himself. Exhibiting his work in Thomas Mann's gallery adds another layer of significance to the project as he and Mann celebrate the book's release and their ability to create work in the aftermath of their successful cancer treatments.
Throughout the process of making this work, Staszewski reflects that both he and Mann grappled with the existential questions of “mortality and why we create in the first place. Seeing how Tom continues to compulsively create while, in his own words, being closer to the end of his art-making journey than to the beginning, changed my life. I was trying to capture the essence of that experience in a book.”
Staszewski and Mann have a long history. Growing up, Mann was a regular fixture in Staszewski’s life. Mann always brought a welcome air of chaos to the more rigid confines of his childhood home. As Staszewski grew older, Mann became an even more important influence. Long before he became a photographer, Staszewski apprenticed with Mann as a bench jeweler in New Orleans and eventually moved there for college. Close to the Bayou considers the place of longtime mentorship specifically within a multigenerational male friendship.
The book’s intentional design and formatting choices also mirror the themes found throughout the book. Staszewski shares, “The vellum reflects the brain fog of cancer treatment, the fog that exists in San Francisco where I grew up, the essence and feeling of the bayou and New Orleans that Tom calls home. Tom also uses translucent paper in his work. All these design elements felt like a way to physically represent his spirit and practice in the book. I’m using the book as a medium to reinforce what it means to be close to the bayou.”
About the artist:
Dimitri Staszewski is a documentary photographer interested in long-term personal projects that use intimate storytelling to shed light on relatable and global issues. Cultural preservation is often at the core of his work and bookmaking is essential to his photography practice.
The major projects Staszewski engages in exist across different formats and subject matters. What connects his work is a curiosity to tell stories that reveal complexity in the familiar and bring audiences closer to subjects that feel far away.
In 2015, Staszewski was awarded a Fulbright-mtvU Fellowship for his work documenting traditional music performed by nomadic herders in Mongolia. In 2018 he participated in the Joshua Tree Highlands Artist Residency and the 31st Eddie Adams Workshop. In 2022 he self-published a cookbook called Heart-Shaped Tomatoes about his 102-year-old Italian immigrant grandmother, Elda Cristini. Workshop Arts published he first photobook Close to the Bayou in the fall of 2024.
