D A T E
June 2, 2021- June 30, 2021
Opening Reception
June 4, 2021
Closing Reception
June 18, 2021
“Peggy” recontextualizes the photo work of Ryan Ko’s mother, taken during her time deployed at an American military base stationed in Okinawa, Japan, by revising, pairing, and inserting Ko’s own work amongst it. Through revisiting the places Ko’s late mother photographed during her deployment, Ko created a visual relationship between the landscape, himself, and his mother. Utilizing photography as a medium and it’s ability to intersect the past and the present moment, Ko is able to see through the eyes of his mother and form a bond between family and those passed on. Ko leaves to question, Can we become close to someone who is already gone? Can we make the memories of others part of our own?
“Nuestro Barrio” is a neighborhood located in a section of Phoenix, Arizona’s largest food desert. A food desert is defined as a geographic area in which affordable and healthy food, especially produce, is scarce or absent. Through photographs, the relationship between people and the landscape is examined, using symbols of food as a barrier. While many residents voluntarily left Nuestro Barrio due to a relocation program based on demolition, many chose to stay. This investigates a community which refuses to disappear.
