façades.
Residential Façades
Archival Inkjet Prints
2009 - Ongoing
Residential Façades is a photographic project focused on the documentation of suburbia: overgrown and under-planned. The unadorned “façades” act as a veil of wealth and stability, hinting at the American dream. A dream it seems we can no longer afford. These replicated structures boast an overwhelming sense of the generic; an indexical sign of the death of the local. All of this resulting in the eventual decline of spatially-derived identity and the emergence of a generic suburban, or dare I say American, vernacular. The title itself confronts us with a convenient double entendre, one simultaneously describing the physical face of these homes (and in turn our neighborhoods and projected identities), and the illusion behind which lingers the fragility of a nation.
This body of images, a typology of street facing facades in suburban developments, makes a deliberate reference to Industrial Façades a series of works by photographers Bernd and Hilla Becher. Less specifically these images call on our memory of the many images associated with the New Topographics exhibition curated by William Jenkins in 1975. Residential Façades (2009 - present) features an ever-growing number of silver gelatin prints, aptly sized to fit IKEA RIBBA frames.
Residential Façades is a photographic project focused on the documentation of suburbia: overgrown and under-planned. The unadorned “façades” act as a veil of wealth and stability, hinting at the American dream. A dream it seems we can no longer afford. These replicated structures boast an overwhelming sense of the generic; an indexical sign of the death of the local. All of this resulting in the eventual decline of spatially-derived identity and the emergence of a generic suburban, or dare I say American, vernacular. The title itself confronts us with a convenient double entendre, one simultaneously describing the physical face of these homes (and in turn our neighborhoods and projected identities), and the illusion behind which lingers the fragility of a nation.
This body of images, a typology of street facing facades in suburban developments, makes a deliberate reference to Industrial Façades a series of works by photographers Bernd and Hilla Becher. Less specifically these images call on our memory of the many images associated with the New Topographics exhibition curated by William Jenkins in 1975. Residential Façades (2009 - present) features an ever-growing number of silver gelatin prints, aptly sized to fit IKEA RIBBA frames.
