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“Rotan Switch”: 20 Nostalgic Photos Documenting The Community Of Rotan By Lisa Mccord
Part of the exclusive online showroom developed by All About Photo, this exhibition is on view for the month of August 2023 and includes twenty photographs from the series ‘Rotan Switch’.
Sandrine Hermand-Grisel is the curator for this month's show.
Rotan Switch.
I began documenting life on my grandparents’ cotton farm in 1978, when I was twenty-one years old. I developed close relationships with the people who worked on the farm. They welcomed me into their homes; I’d hang out with them at the juke joints where they relaxed at the end of a hard week of work. We’d share fried chicken and black-eyed peas. We’d sing 'Sweet Jesus, Carry Me Home' at St. John Missionary Baptist Church.
More info: all-about-photo.com | Instagram | lisamccordphotography.com | leicagalleryla.com
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#1
Rochelle With Daughter And Grandson
I have lived in many places, but my idea of home remains firmly rooted in the Arkansas land and people. After forty years, I have come to realize that all the photographs I made at Rotan are explorations of home. I’ve also come to realize that the place I call home is not perfect. Rotan Switch takes its name from the community’s central landmark—the railroad switch where farmers loaded their cotton bales onto trains headed out of the Delta. Although it hasn’t been used in years, it remains a potent symbol of the complex intersections of industry and agriculture, of race and injustice.
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#2
A Humid Day © Lisa Mccord
Jane No Dough 2 years ago
I love this photo, so seventies. I can feel and smell the air after the storm passed through. I remember the long borrrring days hanging with friends until Mom threatened an as* beating if you didn't get inside. NO PHONES, NO COMPUTERS, NO MONEY, just cartoons, comic books, Mad magazines and mayhem...
These photographs are complicated; they exist in the context of the socioeconomic structures of the rural South. Although the subjects are family to me, as a white photographer and the granddaughter of a landowner, my photographs of the Black community implicate my own role in reinforcing these power structures. In a community in which most people spend their time working or caring for children, my ability to observe and document in itself has been a position of privilege.
#4
Cheryl With Silos
Joanne Mendonza-Earle 1 year ago
I'd love to know where all of these people are now and what they are doing.
The images are coupled with my own memories as well as reflections by the people in the photographs. These images are a record of my story of Rotan and the Arkansas Delta, a story that is specific to me and my family’s role in a place where inequities exist to this day. I have done my best to acknowledge this complicated history.
#6
Brucie Napping
#7
Boys With Cars
Joanne Mendonza-Earle 1 year ago
I wonder if this was taken the same day as the other one above, 'humid day'.
#8
Cully And James Kissing
#9
Young Couple On Couch
#10
Sunday School
#11
Grandmother Sorting Playing Cards
#16
Granddaddy And Lind With Irrigation System
#18
Cheryl On Bed
Aria Whitaker 2 years ago
That crooked picture above the bed is making my eye twitch....I just wanna reach through and fix it!!
#19
Frances With Child
#20
Chloe At Ish's Bar
Hugh Cookson 2 years ago
Damn, how poor is this community ? Woodchip walled bar with a bare bulb for that gritty ambience ?
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