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Jul 16, 2026, 06:27AM

Nothing Like It

A 2017 Juxtapoz interview with artist Nathaniel Mary Quinn vs. a 2025 Isolated Nation interview with filmmaker Payal Kapadia.

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Nathaniel Mary Quinn: Yeah, it was like the heavens were opening for me.

Payal Kapadia: That would require 10,000 people and a lot of imagination, which I feel I don't have.

Quinn: Which is false, no truth in that at all. I'd just draw the slither of the eye and the slither of the nose, and maybe part of mouth.

Kapadia: So, we decided that we’d shoot it like a documentary, with a very small camera.

Quinn: That’s it. Nothing like it.

•••

Kapadia: And I feel we don't loiter enough.

Quinn: No one is exempt from the waves of life. You learn to live with abrupt changes in your life and they impact your identity as a human being.

Kapadia: Unfortunately, that's how the world is designed. The rice cooker is something that is just glamorous enough.

Quinn: There wasn't anything in there except a few articles of clothing.

Kapadia: Maybe it’s a bit of a cheesy thing to say, but we’re all trying our best, you know?

•••

Quinn: And you have to be a highly empathetic person to be able to embrace the journey with human complexity.

Kapadia: I think there is something universal in those connections.

Quinn: Yeah, yeah. Nah, I didn't sell anything.

Kapadia: (laughs) Those scenes were not in the script when I started making the movie.

Quinn: I would draw on the walls, and my mom would wash the walls and would let me draw again.

—Raymond Cummings has written for Splice Today since 2010

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