Tag Archives: Jolietville

The 2017 Triangle

The shuttered Hornaing, France coal-fired power plant.

After a string of years bouncing around the map, in 2017 I mainly traced the triangle between Minneapolis, Chicago, and France.

I spent most of my time teaching at St. Olaf and wrapping up The Area in Chicago, but I dedicated nearly two months to two different French projects. In January, I continued my “Resilient Images” residency in Hauts-de-France interpreting the character and identity of France’s former mining region. In August, I worked on a cultural heritage project in Paris, Hauts-de-France, and Normandy with Atout France. The next month, I returned to Hauts-de-France for talks, photography, and to open the residency show at the Centre régional de la photographie Hauts-de-France.

Back in the States, I showed a preview of my Resilient Images project at EXPO Chicago with the Hyde Park Art Center and then exhibited photographs from the Chicago Housing Authority’s Plan for Transformation at the Chicago Architecture Biennial and the National Public Housing Museum.

I did make time for a little other travel. I visited New York City twice with The Area to participate in the IFP Filmmaker Labs and briefly visited to southern California and central Indiana. At the end of the year I hopped back to Europe to hail the new year in Scandinavia. A good year.

I’m starting 2018 with the American debut of Hauts-de-France Mining Basin at the Hyde Park Art Center and “Urban Art and the Block: Film Screening of Selections from The Area.” In other projects, my book with Michael Carriere is closing in on a complete draft, and The Area should also be premiering soon — more about that shortly. Check the website or follow me on Twitter or Facebook for updates.

And now a few of my favorite photographs from 2017. Thanks for your interest, and Happy New Year!

Hauts-de-France Mining Basin and the Resilient Images Residency

With Terril

Flipping in the Former Coal Mine

Coal Car

See more from Hauts-de-France Mining Basin in my photography section of the website.

The Area Film

Review Screening of The Area at IFP in New York

Screening scenes from The Area at IFP’s Made in NY Media Center.

In the Area

Visit The Area‘s website for more information about the film.

Roubaix, France

Centre social Pile Sainte Elisabeth

Le Havre, France

Auguste Perret's St. Joseph's Church

Read more about Le Havre and Auguste Perret’s St. Joseph’s Church elsewhere on the blog.

Chicago, Illinois

On the South Side

Princeton, Minnesota

Teen Center

New York City, New York

On the Street

Solana Beach, California

And, Finally, By Moonlight

Jolietville, Indiana

A-Frame in Winter

Oslo, Norway

Frogner Apartments

Norefjell, Norway

Noresund Church

On Norefjell Mountain

Copenhagen, Denmark

Grundtvig's Church by Peder Vilhelm Jensen Klint

Grundtvig's Church by Peder Vilhelm Jensen Klint Grundtvig's Church by Peder Vilhelm Jensen Klint

New Years in Copenhagen

Transitions Between Here and There

My interest in the transformation of the built environment started with watching the razing of central Indiana farmsteads for suburban expansion in the early 1990s. These buildings, like the one below, became the subjects of my first landscape photographs.

Hamilton County, Indiana, 1994
Hamilton County, Indiana, 1994

While I typically work in urban areas now, I make an effort to spend time in the rural and transitional areas between Indianapolis and Chicago whenever I have occasion to leave the city.

Many of the same issues affect these areas as they did when I was learning about them in the early 1990s, but the region is more complex than it was then. Even with the recent recession, the rural edges are still pressured by suburban expansion, but a variety of other economic and geographic pressures demonstrate the changing rural landscape.

The area is dotted with vestiges of commerce, from familiar billboards and grain elevators to new forms of industry, including wind turbines and industrial agriculture property. Together, they introduce new pressures on longstanding concerns about exurban development while providing some hope against outmigration in truly rural communities.

With those brief thoughts as background, here are a few of my favorite photographs of the places between my former and current homes.

Indiana Hub Center Remington

Agribusiness at Night 3

Christmas Eve

Eagle Creek Cemetery

Stand

A New Rural Landscape

Otterbein Town Square

Sheridan, Christmas Eve

The Fowler Theatre

Basketball in Lebanon, Indiana

Transition: Suburban Development and Farm

Kyburz Auto Center Stage, Wind Turbines

Twin Kiss

Grain Elevator, Mobile Home

At Night