Joshua Dudley Greer | Somewhere along the Line

Here in Indiana, we claim our identity as the place you pass through on the Interstate. The actual state motto is ​“The Crossroads of America.” From this point on the map, it may be difficult to imagine anything less photographically intriguing than the Highway. Yet Joshua Dudley Greer’s new book on this very topic has my full attention.

How might we best explore the current state of America? For Greer, the answer was to travel and observe the whole vast and varied thing from the unromanticized vantage of the Interstate. Greer’s book, ​‘Somewhere Along the Line’, depicts the stratified layers of highways upon highways, and more often the life around and underneath them. He brings our awareness to the in-between spaces, the overlooked places and persons en route to the destination. He calls attention to the bits of red, white, and blue, tossed out with our fast food wrappers along the country-wide expanse of grey. He works to divert our eyes from the monotonous yellow line, to examine the realities of the monstrous system that carries us around the country.

The project is clearly a long and careful study. Every image is a product of patience and of Greer’s observant intuition. Some of the scenes and narratives are immediate photographic marvels. Other scenes appear banal at first, but that’s a ruse; they’re all bursting with meaning. There is a surprise in nearly every photograph. Greer offers a rich reward for our time and attention, breaking up the sameness of the highway with stories of people just trying to make a life.

From my position here at the crossroads, ​‘Somewhere Along the Line’ opens up my thinking on a landscape so familiar, I’d simply ceased to see it. As the book progresses I begin to trust that he has something important to show us, about what we choose to overlook and about inequality in America.

- Lisa