Joshua Dudley Greer | Somewhere Along the Line

This past Friday, Pictura hosted the opening reception for Joshua Dudley Greer’s ​‘Somewhere Along the Line’ that will be on view until November 30. The series is a six-year photography project that traces America’s highways, looking for unforeseen moments of humor, pathos and humanity.

There was also a reading by local Bloomington poets and writers — Ross Gay, Essence London, Francesca Hanson, WLS, Bella Bravo, & janan alexandra — who read original poems in conversation with the photographs.

The artist statement:

From 2011 to 2017 I traveled over 100,000 miles by car, focusing my camera on the massive network of superhighways that has become ubiquitous throughout the United States. Whether located within an urban environment or leading out to the last remnants of wilderness, these roadways have been designed to suppress any distinguishing characteristics of place and instead construct a familiar and uniform system of functional spaces built for mobility and productivity.

Rather than moving quickly through these spaces however, I have made the decision to slowly and deliberately dwell within them, looking for unforeseen moments of humor, pathos and humanity. My photographs look at the road as a stage where narratives play out and opposing forces often collide. The boundaries that line these landscapes, whether real or imagined, are examined by looking at the separations between public and private space, privilege and need, the individual and the collective, and the countervailing ideas of home and escape. The resulting compilation of photographs depicts the state of America’s infrastructure as a cultural indicator of its economic, social and environmental circumstances.


Photos from the event: