gallery

The exhibition, Adapting Spaces, included photgraphy by four artists exploring the link between person and place. John Mann drew his inspiration from his, and others', experiences hiking the Appalachain Trail. Tracy Langley-Cook took a surreal approach, using black and white images and creative use of focus to draw the viewer into specific parts of the picture. Ryan Adrick's photography was more literal, and showed people and buildings from all different areas of the world. Daniel Kariko's photos were particularly stunning, showing different buildings in Louisiana which were in vaarious states of disrepair, and the surrounding landscapes. All of these photographs fit within the theme of the exhibition as they all showed humans, the spaces they occupy, and the variance between those people and spaces.

My favortie photo from the collection is the one included above. As an anthropology major, I'm interested in the ways which people live their lives. It reminded me of a previous exhibition I visited at the University of Pennsylvania's Museum of Anthropology and archaeology called the Righteous Dopefiends. Anthropologists followed various drug addicted homeless people, and documented their eating, sleeping, and using habits. While these pictures are intended to illustrate a different kind of "homelessness," the sight of a flattened cardboard box immediately brought all those emotions back to me.

This photo shows a flattened cardboard box upon which more than one someone more than likely slept. I feel that this photo really gives the viewer a sense of how exposed and vulnerable one is when sleeping on a carboard box along a trail in the woods. The box is tucked into the clearing, but still easily seen and accessed from the trail. The artist captured this feeling by including some of the surrounding area and not just focusing on the box itself.