29 June 2009 | Posted inBlog News & Updates, Pictures
Images of a City
While twittering away, an artist friend sent a link my way of a very cool project I can only wish to have been involved! It’s called dArt St. Louis!
The project consisted of a group of artists throwing darts at a map of St. Louis, and then going to their darted location with cameras in hand (yes, darted can be used in this way, consult the special edition of my dictionary, not yet on bookshelves). Each artist took photographs of what they saw at their location. Ultimately, the combination of the photos can give anyone a true portrait of St. Louis.
I have to admit that looking at the photos saddens me to see the deterioration. I was however, very happy to see a good quantity of eccentric photos, which is exactly what I think St. Louis happens to be, an odd mix of everything that can be wonderful!
I’d love to see similar projects, do artists in other cities do anything similar?
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Great concept – turned into some really nice photography and I thought examining the vastly different approaches was very interesting.
I love the photography as well. I couldn’t help noticing that many of the images focused on “decay” as the subject. Perhaps this is the location of the darts. Or is there something else going on in STL? I wonder if there’s a sense of the city becoming old? That could be a positive or a negative; people may look at the history of the city and appreciate it, but they could also be craving urban renewal? What doe you STLers think?
I fear, as I have suspected for many years, that St. Louis has been left to die. That is not the case in many locations however. A handful of portions of the city are being demolished and replaced (which I am against, I happen to be for historic preservation). Sadly I believe St. Louis is victim to urban sprawl, and as such until a good revitalization is in full swing, (and it’s getting there), we will continue to see too many decaying images.
Gorgeous photography…and how cute is that dog tongue?
Beautiful imagery…saw the work of a few TOKY photographers in there. To answer Jason’s question, there are plenty of places in St. Louis that aren’t decaying! But I suppose the darts don’t lie. This is why I haven’t typically relied on the dart-throwing method in choosing places in the city where I’ve lived in the past and now hang out!
St. Louis is indeed pretty electic.
There are areas that are very beautiful – and areas that are very ugly.
There are areas where people beautify their surroundings – and there are areas where people choose to graffiti.
You can have a impressionist painter’s view of St. Louis…or you can have a proctologist’s view of St. Louis. Sadly, many of these photos emphasize the view of the proctologist…
Interesting about the ‘decay’ comment – I think that’s my favorite thing about St Louis. It’s older than Chicago, and it never burned down! When I am trying to tell people about st louis the first thing I mention is that you can EASILY get a home over 100 years old for a steal, and that’s something people are really up for. Talk about adaptive reuse! Only so many people still want new construction McMansions, the others want homes with character, in a city where they can really make a mark by rebuiling where and how they want – something you can’t do in cities all gentrified and ‘cleaned up.’
More information on the event: http://www.fkphoto.com/blog/2009/05/dart_st_louis_a_party.html
I know the plan is for this event to happen again next spring, so watch for it. I also know a lot of the dart-throwers aimed high (north side) where sadly a lot the neglected neighborhoods are, but also where a lot of great revitalization efforts are happening.