Speaker
Co-host & Co-creator
Ear Hustle Podcast
United States
Nigel Poor, co-host and co-creator of Ear Hustle. Nigel is a visual artist who explores the various ways people make a mark and leave behind evidence of their existence. Poor's work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. Nigel is interested in forms of portraiture and explores this vastly mined photographic area through unconventional mean; using fingerprints and hands, objects people have thrown out, human hair, dirt, dryer lint and dead insects as indexical markers of human presence and experience. Her work explores the troubling question of how to document life and what is worthy of preservation. In 2011 Nigel’s interest in investigating the marks people leave behind led her to San Quentin State Prison where she taught history of photography classes for the Prison University Project. This experience changed the focus of her practice and the visual presentation of her ideas. She has since moved away from being a solely visual artist working alone in the studio and now spends the majority of her “studio” time inside the prison working with a group of mostly lifers on photographic projects and producing radio stories about life inside. In 2011, Poor became a volunteer professor for the Prison University Project and taught at San Quentin State Prison before co-founding Ear Hustle in 2016. Ear Hustle offers insight into daily life inside prison and post-incarceration, shared by those living it. Nigel Poor and the Ear Hustle team work in the San Francisco Bay Area, both in San Quentin State Prison’s media lab and from offices on the outside, to produce stories that are sometimes difficult, often funny and always honest. Episodes offer a nuanced view of people involved with the American prison system and those reintegrating into society after serving time. For more information, visit EarHustleSq.com and NigelPoor.com.