honorable mention
Sylvia de Swaan united states
title
(untitled)
When the last super market in town closed its doors in the mid 1980’s it seemed time to think about moving on. But it was the influx of refugees from many of the worlds’ war zone coupled with efforts by local people that turned the tide. Refugees bought derelict houses, fixed them up to live in, as ethnic shops and restaurants. The new Bosnian community acquired an unused church that was ready for the wrecker’s ball, fixed it up and turned it into a mosque. Local people determined to save their community, opened cafes, organized farmers markets, music festivals and exhibitions.
The title “Where Will You Spend Eternity?” derives from a roadside billboard I once saw in front of a small country church - which when I pulled over to take a picture,seemed a valid consideration beyond the sphere of fundamentalist religion. The issue is how we can protect our culture, our society, our children, the air we breathe and the soil that feeds us so that they can sustain our own and future generations.
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entry description
“Where Will You Spend Eternity” is an ongoing exploration of Utica, NY and it’s environs, a post industrial and post agricultural region that beginning in the 1960s, had suffered from the decline of its economic base - closing factories, empty store fronts, bankrupt farms, population flight, arson, unemployment and increased poverty. When I first began this project at the turn of the millennium I was struck by the numbers of demolition sites that were turning former proud palaces of industry into piles of rubble, bringing to mind a line from the poem “Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley. …”Nothing beside remains, round the decay of the colossal wreck, boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away.”When the last super market in town closed its doors in the mid 1980’s it seemed time to think about moving on. But it was the influx of refugees from many of the worlds’ war zone coupled with efforts by local people that turned the tide. Refugees bought derelict houses, fixed them up to live in, as ethnic shops and restaurants. The new Bosnian community acquired an unused church that was ready for the wrecker’s ball, fixed it up and turned it into a mosque. Local people determined to save their community, opened cafes, organized farmers markets, music festivals and exhibitions.
The title “Where Will You Spend Eternity?” derives from a roadside billboard I once saw in front of a small country church - which when I pulled over to take a picture,seemed a valid consideration beyond the sphere of fundamentalist religion. The issue is how we can protect our culture, our society, our children, the air we breathe and the soil that feeds us so that they can sustain our own and future generations.
about the photographer
I'm an art and documentary photographer who works on long term personal projects about identity, memory, personal history, displacement and war. I travel frequently to Eastern Europe and Mexico exploring a terrain in earlier stages of my life. My work has been awarded grants, fellowships and prizes from Art Matters, Inc., Aaron Siskind Foundation, Light Work, Arts Link, Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Austrian Ministry of Culture, New York Foundation for the Arts, the Society for Photographic Education and Px3, among others. My photographs have been exhibited and published nationally and internationally.back to gallery