Participation Type
Other
Session Title
Session 3.09 Poster Session
Presentation #1 Title
You Can't Go Home Again
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
This photo series documents a year spent working for Bethany College in Bethany, West Virginia, after graduating from there twelve years earlier and after leaving Appalachia six years earlier. What began with simple photographs of old haunts and of a beautiful, historic place became a project to record the play of continuity and change at this aging institution. Unintentionally, my own struggles with Appalachian identity and the desire to return home found their way into the frame. The surrounding hillsides are ever-present in the photographs, though they are set in contrast to the flat farmland of my adopted home in southeast Michigan. I also became interested in the oddities that can only be found in isolated, old, institutional settings: forgotten and neglected spaces, unconventional views, and marks left by unchanged patterns of life. The circumstances of my own life also become subject matter: working and sleeping during the week in Bethany and returning home each weekend to southeastern Michigan to my wife and daughter. As with the two landscapes, the mundane events of each life picked up new meaning when set in contrast. The grand plan to relocate my family back home to Appalachia failed as my wife could not find work nearby, and I returned to our Michigan home. I am still trying to determine the meaning of this journey, and I search for clues in these photographs.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Jason Hartz is Director of Institutional Research at Siena Heights University in Adrian, Michigan. He is also an amateur artist and musician in his free time.
You Can't Go Home Again
MSC Lobby
This photo series documents a year spent working for Bethany College in Bethany, West Virginia, after graduating from there twelve years earlier and after leaving Appalachia six years earlier. What began with simple photographs of old haunts and of a beautiful, historic place became a project to record the play of continuity and change at this aging institution. Unintentionally, my own struggles with Appalachian identity and the desire to return home found their way into the frame. The surrounding hillsides are ever-present in the photographs, though they are set in contrast to the flat farmland of my adopted home in southeast Michigan. I also became interested in the oddities that can only be found in isolated, old, institutional settings: forgotten and neglected spaces, unconventional views, and marks left by unchanged patterns of life. The circumstances of my own life also become subject matter: working and sleeping during the week in Bethany and returning home each weekend to southeastern Michigan to my wife and daughter. As with the two landscapes, the mundane events of each life picked up new meaning when set in contrast. The grand plan to relocate my family back home to Appalachia failed as my wife could not find work nearby, and I returned to our Michigan home. I am still trying to determine the meaning of this journey, and I search for clues in these photographs.
