MIDDLESCAPES

Middlescapes explores the American Midwest through cornfields, small towns, and everyday encounters—an imaginary place found in reality.

Real estate sign in an open grassy field beneath a blue sky.
A white building with several windows, a bench, a tree with green leaves, a lamppost with an American flag sticker, and silos and industrial equipment in the background under a clear blue sky.
A vast field of dried corn stalks with a tractor in the distance under a blue sky with light clouds.

REFERENCE POINT #1

Early twentieth-century Precisionists pictured factories, silos, and cities through crisp lines and geometric forms. Their images gave visual expression to the promise of industrial progress. Middlescapes returns to this geometry in the contemporary landscape, asking what remains of that optimism in the places we inhabit.

Painting of an industrial building with tall white elevators against a blue sky.
Painting of an industrial landscape featuring factories with smokestacks, a railway track in the foreground, and clouds overhead.
Painting of a city skyline with industrial buildings and smoke in muted tones.
A painting of an industrial scene with a large red chimney and a water tower, with a cloudy sky in the background.
Chubby’s storefront beside a trailer piled with leafy branches on a small-town street.
Gravel entrance to a rural showground with a Buckley, Illinois sign, utility poles, and open fields.
Hamburger restaurant sign with drive-through lettering and a For Lease notice beside an American flag.
People standing near a carnival ride called the Ring of Fire, which has a colorful spinning structure with seats for riders. There are signs and barriers around the ride to control access.

REFERENCE POINT #2

Social documentary photography offers another way of looking at the same landscape: attentive to the lives, labor, and inequalities behind the promise of progress. A photograph is both a record and a point of view. Middlescapes draws on this tension between description and interpretation, approaching ordinary places with curiosity, empathy, and a critical eye.

A family with two children seated indoors against a wood-paneled wall.
Black-and-white portrait of a parade participant wearing a fringed garment and a feathered headband, photographed by Horace Poolaw.
Dorothea Lange’s black-and-white photograph of a dead eagle with wings spread on a barbed-wire fence beside a field.
A black and white photo of a rural landscape with a road and a sign that reads "The Lord Jesus said, 'I come quickly,' Be ye ready" situated in the middle of a field with small buildings and trees in the background.
Geometric yellow building facade beneath a pale, clouded sky.
A small white metal outdoor table and two matching chairs are set in a clearing among tall green trees with dappled sunlight shining through the leaves.
Silver semi-truck decorated with American flags passing spectators beneath leafy trees.
Crowd seated outdoors facing a stage decorated with American flags and bunting.
Basketball player holding the ball beside a referee beneath the hoop in a crowded arena.
A short concrete path ends in grass overlooking an undeveloped strip and a row of suburban houses.

REFERENCE POINT #3

A third reference is the storytelling of American regional painting and murals, where farms, towns, industry, and everyday gatherings become scenes of collective life. These images place people within the landscapes they shape through work and habit. Middlescapes carries that attention into photography, looking for the ways a place holds shared histories, aspirations, and contradictions.

Mural combining figures, agricultural scenes, and industrial structures.
Painting of people gathered in a rural setting with houses, a barn, and a windmill.
Painting of a busy town street with people, cars, storefronts, and industrial smoke.
Colourful mural depicting workers constructing a building.
White vintage car parked beside a white building beneath overhead wires.
Three metal bollards beside a green lawn with the base of a tall monument rising beyond it.
A narrow dirt path between tall rows of corn beneath a blue, cloud-filled sky.
Going Out of Business banner across a blank commercial facade above a cracked, empty parking lot.
An old farmhouse surrounded by bare trees stands alone beyond a harvested field.
Power lines cross open farmland beyond a roadside verge and a yellow line on the asphalt.
An industrial building with a corrugated metal exterior and vent openings, situated behind a set of train tracks with wooden railroad ties and crushed stone ballast.
A weathered wooden house in a field of tall, golden grass under a pale, overcast sky.
A reader holds the tan cover of Middlescapes by Phillip Kalantzis Cope beside a lake.
The spiral-bound Middlescapes photobook rests on fallen leaves and grass, its tan cover facing up.
A reader holds Middlescapes open to its introductory pages beside a lake.
Middlescapes lies open on autumn leaves, showing its inside cover and introductory text.
An open spread of the spiral-bound Middlescapes photobook displays a cornfield photograph on the right-hand page.
Middlescapes rests open on leaves, showing a printed landscape photograph on the left-hand page.
A reader holds Middlescapes open beside a lake to a photograph of Chubby’s storefront.
A reader displays a photographic spread from Middlescapes beside a lake and autumn trees.
Middlescapes lies open on fallen leaves with a roadside landscape photograph on the left-hand page.
A reader holds an open Middlescapes spread with a vertical landscape photograph on the left-hand page.
An open Middlescapes spread on autumn leaves shows a field photograph on the right-hand page.
A reader holds Middlescapes open to a vertical photograph of a wooded scene beside a lake.
Middlescapes rests open among rocks and autumn leaves, showing a photograph of a flag-decorated semi-truck.
Wide view of Middlescapes open on rocks, pinecones, and fallen leaves to the semi-truck photograph.
Middlescapes open among autumn leaves and rocks, showing a small-town street scene on the right-hand page.
Overhead view of Middlescapes on fallen leaves, open to a small-town street photograph.
A reader holds Middlescapes beside a lake, showing a vertical photograph of an outdoor crowd and stage.
View over a reader’s shoulder of Middlescapes open to a photograph of a power-line tower against blue sky.
A reader displays an open Middlescapes spread showing a path through a cornfield, with a lake behind the book.
A reader holds up the plain tan back cover of the spiral-bound Middlescapes photobook beside a lake.

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