Brian O’Neill walks and talks with Tim Hale about the upcoming exhibition, "Fields of Vision: Contemporary Photography in Central Illinois."

What influence our orientations to photographic representations of Central Illinois? Are we oriented by geographical boundaries, the rhythms of agricultural landscapes, processes of collective myth-making, lived connections to land and place, or all of the above? How might the pre-existing shape our meaning-making processes? How do visual imaginaries, tracing their way back to midwestern industrialization as portrayed in the Regionalist Art Movement, or themes explored in the context of the Farm Security Administration and the New Deal Works Progress Administration documentation, or the now seemingly ever-present “road trip” trope shape visual practices? Often the focus of such experiences remains voyeuristic, capturing a kind of carnival of oddities as one passes from one point to another. What are “our” focal points? Are there unique perspectives speaking from the “inside” to “out” that might contrast prior imaginaries? What processes can allow one to speak from the “inside”? Is there a ? A unique, if blurred, spot, that is, an indistinctness between the visual representations of the past, what is contemporary, and what is the future that is now shaping contemporary photography in Central Illinois?

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Immaterial Books: https://www.immaterialbooks.com

Brian O'Neill: https://www.brianfoneill.net

Tim Hale: https://www.timhale.net

Analog Gallery in Urbana, Illinois: https://analogurbana.com