The Retail Landscape

I undertook the Retail Landscape project to explore how discount, consumer culture has shaped community landscapes. Over years of driving the I-81 corridor from New York to North Carolina twice yearly, I saw the diverse range of local hotels, restaurants, and retail stores disappear as new franchises crowded around every highway exit. I felt these new landscapes reflected changing American values and corporate business practices. I wanted to witness first-hand their impact on towns across the country.

In 2013, after photographing retail landscapes in the northeast for six years, I traveled 13,000 miles to photograph retail landscapes in locations from the Mississippi River to the west coast and back. In 2016, I received a Luminous Landscape grant to photograph in the southeast and along the I-81 corridor north to Pennsylvania, allowing me to complete a nationwide documentation of retail landscapes.

Through my travels, I came to understand that the consumer choices we make don’t just effect our pocketbook or identity: they underwrite the hundreds of thousands of franchises, access roads, signs, and parking lots that fill retail landscapes across the nation, and in as much have repercussions around the globe. I have learned that the sum of our consumer choices express how we value natural resources, human resources, and the landscapes we call home.