© Olivia Wyatt

Recently, I panned the Magnum: In Motion piece on Haiti. Afterward, I went back to put a name to the disaster. Olivia Wyatt.

Then I felt guilty. I meant to attack Magnum, not an individual … who has a name … which is stated clearly at the end of the piece.

To allay may guilt, I feverishly went in search of other stuff to support the notion that Wyatt was piss-poor at what she did. I was sorely disappointed.

QUALITY

Olivia Wyatt has her lens and mic up in some good projects. As well as producing Jonas Bendiksen’s Nepal Maoists and the Magnum group’s Merry Christmas (with choice tunes from the Trans-Siberian Orchestra) she was also the producer on Christopher Anderson’s Capitolio Magnum: In Motion piece that played its part in getting everyone hot and bothered last summer.

Silicon Forest, the other Anderson piece Wyatt worked on fizzes and pops with the same disjointed eye that Anderson lent to Akademgorodok (Academic City), Siberia.

© Olivia Wyatt

THERE’S MORE

Then after unearthing some classy collage works, I came across Wyatt’s unexpected polaroids from Ethiopia (pages 46-54).

After all this, her Vimeo channel walks me straight into another dimension where Eraserhead meets Jesus Camp meets Point Break.

Seeking the Spirit is about Pastor Richard Philips and the congregation of the Celestial Church in Christ meeting at the Beach 96th Street, Rockaway, New York to observe an all night ceremony of prayer and cleansing.

Screen grab. Seeking the Spirit, by Olivia Wyatt

All great work. I am chastened.