Jade Doskow's World's Fair Project

[Thom Bennett]

Very interesting project. She uses a 4x5.

http://www.jadedoskowphotography.com/Home

[DaveS]

Thanks for the link.

[Andrew Plume]

and me too

also, another successful kickstarter project

andrew

[bgh]

This is fantastic, hitting two of my interests at one time! In addition to large-format, my dissertation (and forthcoming book this summer) was on world's fairs in southern cities. What a terrific project! I hope to see the exhibit. Thanks for posting the link.

Bruce

[Thom Bennett]

Bruce,

Your dissertation sounds interesting as well. Did you photograph any of the remnants of the 1984 World's Fair in New Orleans?

Thom

This is fantastic, hitting two of my interests at one time! In addition to large-format, my dissertation (and forthcoming book this summer) was on world's fairs in southern cities. What a terrific project! I hope to see the exhibit. Thanks for posting the link.

Bruce

[bgh]

Bruce,

Your dissertation sounds interesting as well. Did you photograph any of the remnants of the 1984 World's Fair in New Orleans?

Thom

Hi Thom--

Thanks! Alas, the book has nothing to do with my photography (though I did manage to sneak one image in that was almost relevant). I took a fairly intensive look at three of the southern fairs--Atlanta in 1895, Nashville in 1897, and Charleston, SC in 1901-1902, with only passing references to the others in the South, including New Orleans in 1884. The idea was to look at the ways that leaders in southern cities, both men and women, black and white, made use of the cachet of world's fairs at the time to create a sense of legitimacy for their cities, the region, and, in the case of women and blacks, for their own particular standing in society.

I see that is now available on pre-order from Amazon, where I note that I have cracked the 500,000 barrier in best-selling rank. Woo-hoo!

The principal remaining artifacts for each of these three fairs are the designed landscapes, each of which is now a park (Piedmont Park in Atlanta, Centennial Park in Nashville, and Hampton Park in Charleston), and I would love to get back down there to get some nice landscape photos. Were I independently wealthy, that is…

Thanks again,
Bruce

[Brian C. Miller]

Nice to see a couple of shots of the Spokane site. When I was little, the family went to see it. I didn't know there was anything left.

I remember reading about when a "house of the future," made of ABS plastic, was demolished after a few decades. They expected the plastic to be brittle, but when the wrecking ball was dropped on it, the ball bounced off! Instead of two days, it took the crew over two weeks to demolish the house.

[Oren Grad]

Thanks for posting - brings back memories here too. Expo '67 has always been a special interest of mine - we went as a family during the original run in 1967 and again in 1969, and then I had the opportunity to re-visit the site about 35 years later while on a work trip to Montreal. There was a point when I was well-read in its history and in the details of the various pavilions and other facilities, though much of that has vanished into the fog of distant memory, alas. I do still have a few artifacts from it floating around the house somewhere.

I visited the site of the '64-65 New York World's Fair, too, in the early '70s, by which point it looked thoroughly decrepit.

Bruce: congratulations on your dissertation and book!

Speaking of dissertations, and of Expo '67: Habitat '67, shown in a couple of Jade Doskow's pictures, grew out of Moshe Safdie's M.Arch thesis at McGill.

[Cor]

Enjoyed the series, but perhaps it's just me, but I was slightly distracted by the (too) obvious use of a wide angle lens

Best,

Cor

[Richard Johnson]

Hmm... there is more to learn from her artists statement and promotion than, um, the photos.