Interview: Gerald Jenkins on It's After the End of the World

Having worked closely with cosmic jazz musicians Sun Ra and his Arkestra over a number of years, Australian photographer Gerald Jenkins explains his photography book, It's After the End of the World, named after one of Sun Ra's most otherworldly albums. With images spanning 20 years, and written contributions that interpret Sun Ra's radical cosmology, the book plunges you headfirst into the fusion of ancient symbols and future imagination that wove and still weaves throughout Sun Ra's improvisatory jazz music, spectacular stage presence and spiritual mythos, even after his passing in 1993. In conversation with Bella Gladman, Jenkins explains his impetus for compiling this book, tracing a line through his career working with Aboriginal peoples in Australia to backstage music photography, through to the present day, touching on counterculture and rediscovering forgotten cultural knowledge.