Photographer Stacy Kranitz has always had a deep fascination with Appalachia, the lush, mountainous region that stretches across 13 states in the eastern United States. The decline of its coal industry, which took hold in the mid 19th century, left the area and its people hugely impoverished; photographers duly descended on it in a bid to show the rest of the country what was happening there.
“They offered a simplistic and superficial image of poverty that has haunted the Appalachian people ever since,” Stacy explains. “I was drawn to making work there because I was interested in developing a project that would address the failure of objectivity in the documentary tradition. I wanted to look at a place where photography had failed the people it was trying to help.”
And so, all the time Stacy has spent in Appalachia over the last 15 years – she’s now based there, in the mountains of eastern Tennessee – has culminated in As It Was Give(n) To Me, an exhibition that pulls together photography, found imagery and sculptural artefacts that speak to the lives of marginalised communities. There are images of dramatic landscapes and burning cars, lovers embracing on horseback and girls stuffing menthol Marlboros down their bikini tops, each imbued with a melancholy that feels reminiscent of an Edward Hopper painting.
Since 2009, Stacy has observed plenty of changes in the region. “The most dramatic change was the downfall of the coal economy, but there was also the opioid epidemic, which wreaked havoc on communities,” she says. “There was a profound political transition at the end of Obama’s presidency, as Trump rose in popularity. The Black Lives Matter movement forced many people in the region to have overdue conversations about their relationship with the Confederate flag. The pandemic also illuminated the ways Appalachia’s rural healthcare system has been hollowed out and inadequately cares for people in the region.”
Catch As It Was Give(n) To Me at CCProjects gallery in New York, until 17th May – for a window into lives that are rarely documented for what they really are, and the friendships Stacy has built.
“[Those are] the most significant experiences from the many years I made this work,” she says. “I can’t imagine my life without them.”
