Ben Speck. Riding The Rails, 2008
Born in the Great Depression, the Hobos were the largest American mobile workforce that ever existed. Illegally riding freight trains to move around, they started what is an American subculture until today. It is a conscious choice made from ideology rather than necessity. No ties means absolute freedom. Theirs, they feel, is an alternative and better way of life, independent of a society they consider petty and misleading. Others are simply following the beatnik spirit of experiencing life.
Seba Kurtis. 700 miles (The changing face of America) 2008
“I was living as an illegal immigrant in Europe for more than 5 years, so this body of work is based on an understanding of being a man with no rights.” Borders are imaginary lines that require specific documentation to pass through and to stay on the other side. Certain individuals set these boundries and rules that determine who is entitled to cross over these discriminatory lines and stay and who is not. For those concerned the imaginary concept becomes real and interferes with lives.
Paul Osman. Reno, 2008
The Biggest Little City in the World grew out of the early twentieth century gold mining boom in nearby Virginia city, as a last location stop before the California trail. Legalized and therefore taxed gambling in casinos was first introduced in the state of Nevada in 1931 to reintroduce cash flow back into the economy, to counteract the Great Depression. Over the next few decades Reno established itself as the leisure vacation capital of the United States. This series of images is a comment on the death of an economy and what remains in the way of hope.
Leon Diaper. The Last Free Place, 2008
October 1942, in the 631 acres of desert land surrounding Niland. A tiny township in the Colorado Desert, Camp Dunlap is erected. The newest West Coast Marine Core training center sitting at the western foot of the Chocolate Mountains. The training center would boast thirty buildings, a water treatment and distribution system, eight miles of paved streets, concrete fuel tanks. Slab City, the last free place. Residents in the Slabs have their eye’s wide open, they have duelled with society and constraint and have neither slain nor been slain. Simply preferring instead to lay their rapier down and concentrate on a more worthier opponent.
Bryan Dooley. Omaha, Neb to Sacramento, Cal, 2009
The ‘American Dream‘ has continuously required an advancing Frontier, allowing the ‘Dream‘ to be continuously reinvented, causing an ever desirable idyll, a utopia to aspire to. The Transcontinental Railroad is said to have allowed the idyll of America as a ‘land of plenty’ to exist. The Dream as a Frontier was reduced further on the railroads 75th anniversary by the introduction of a commemorative stamp, emphasising the Dream’s representation by the railroad and also how homogenised the American Dream has become. Omaha, Neb to Sacramento, Cal focuses on these once frontier lands along the route of the Transcontinental railroad, where the American Dream was once at it’s most pure.
theprinspace Gallery
Theprintspace is a professional photographic printing studio & gallery, used by London’s top creative artists & photographers. It is the first pro lab to offer fully colour managed prints & offer the full range of professional print types, from silver-based Digital C-types to Epson Giclees to CMYK Proofs. The theprintspace is consistently chosen by Turner Prize nominees and National Portrait Gallery award winners. The new website also allows users to place their printing orders online, allowing accessibility of the service to reach a global audience.
theprintspace Gallery - “Americanomic State”
theprintspace
74 Kingsland Road
London - UK
Private View July 9
Exhibition runs July 10 – July 31 2009
theprintspace
Photographers:
Ben Speck
Sabe Kurtis
Leon Diaper
Bryan Dooley
Paul Osman - Email: thejackofhearts@hotmail.co.uk
(c) Ben Speck. "Riding The Rails", 2008
