digital photographs, 2010 – 2016
archival inkjet prints, 2021
21 x 15 inches each
In late winter of 2020, I made plans to comb through my collection of photography work and select some images to exhibit in the Hamersly Library gallery at WOU. Then the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown abruptly shut down most campus activities. Travel, particularly by airplane, momentarily ceased to exist.
The library reopened long before most other spaces, while nearly all classes stayed online for an extended time. A relatively small number of people worked, studied, and went about life amidst the stacks. In early 2021, I resumed my original plan to show some photos in that setting. These images from my own prior travels were meant to offer an escape, means of transportation, moment of relief, or window to the world for the community inside the library (and I think they did that).
But on another level, these images invite ethical questions regarding mobility and tourism. Travel by air and car both damage living things and the environment significantly. The relationship between tourism and local people is complex and sometimes devastating. In a particular light, travel can be seen as an extension, or relative, of imperialistic transgression and dispossession. The notion of staying at home can seem naive or even cruel when that home rests on someone else’s traditional land.
Staycation is in the permanent collection of Western Oregon University’s College of Education.