From 2006 to 2011, large-format photographer Jennifer Trausch took the refrigerator-sized 20 × 24 inch Polaroid camera from the predictable, comfortable confines of its studio home out onto the winding roads of the rural American South.
Led from town to town by word of mouth, instinct, and caprice, Trausch worked steadily to understand some of the South’s essential truths through the strange moments she happened across in each small place: at fairs, auctions, dances, bars, and rodeos; in homes and shacks, open fields, swamps, forests, dirt roads and highways. The massive, beautiful contact-print images that Trausch made in these myriad places show a conflicted South: hopeful and menacing, at rest and crackling with life, defeated and defiant.
This exhibition was made possible by the Humana Foundation Endowment for American Art, which was established through the vision of Mr. William C. Ballard, Jr.
The exhibit will run from January 13 through March 10, 2013.
There will be a public reception with the artist from 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM, on Sunday, February 10, 2013.
View the exhibition brochure, Touching Ground.