Modern Nature (2006 - 2008)


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In 2006 I was awarded a design grant from the NEA to photograph early 20th century tourist attractions that were derived from nature. Unlike protected government owned parks, these places utilized inventive, sometimes destructive, architectural and engineering devices that brought nature conveniently within reach of the tourist. They were designed and built by individual entrepreneurs (folk architects) as utopian articulations of an eternal paradise set amid a seductive subtropical landscape. Llike all tourist destinations, they are the visualizations of our desire for an exotic world outside of our daily lives.