Water Street Coffee Joint

Erin, Dorbin

Mar 2010 to Mar 2010, Downtown Kalamazoo

Art Hop Reception: 5pm-9pm on Friday, March 5, 2010.

You are welcome to join us!

INTERIOR LANDSCAPES
by Erin Dorbin

“No true secrets are lurking in the landscape, but only undisclosed evidence, waiting for us.” – Grady Clay

The shuttered main street movie house,

and the small-town grocery.

An abandoned vehicle along the familiar route home,

and the lone-standing drive-in theater.

These are the structures and locations that make up our neighborhoods and give shape to our local landscapes, yet most of them remain wholly unfamiliar to us today. What used to be centers of community activity and objects relevant to our daily lives, we have unconsciously discarded in recent decades. We now view their exteriors in passing, but we rarely stop, open their doors, and get an opportunity to experience what’s inside.

This collection offers a glimpse inside the internal landscapes of our communities and reveals the imprint of human activity left upon their aging interiors. As their futures feel tenuous and little record exists of these spaces except in our memories, these images document their evolutions and offer evidence of the changing roles they’ve played in our lives. Finally, it’s an invitation to the viewer to recollect their relationships to these places and to give consideration to just how the community landscape will continue to evolve and visually manifest itself in future decades.