Middletown USA
This is a project that will take me on a journey to towns across America that all have one thing in common, the name Middletown. Living in Brooklyn, NY, the urban landscape is my photographic domain, and being from another country, Sweden, rural life in America fascinates me.This work is not really a comparison of Middletown's per se, but rather about places and how I see them, as an outsider. I look for the beauty in the ordinary on Main Streets, back streets, in suburban housing developments, industrial zones, office parks, and other areas that many people seldom visit. The work is more about feeling and mood than decisive moments, with its roots in 1970’s vernacular color photography.
My work process is intuitive finding scenes that appeal to my eye or invoke feelings of familiarity, alienation, or the abstract. A point-of-view one might expect from someone who is not at home in a place or searching for something.
I started this project in the summer of 2007 and anticipate finishing it in late 2009. So far I have visited 11 of the 16 Middletown’s: Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and California.
