Laura McPhee’s color photographs capture subtle histories, forgotten spaces, and landscapes dominated by human technology. Her constantly evolving practice has grown to include portraits, landscapes, interiors, and the tensions that open up in each between the cultural and the natural. “I think that things evolve, that there are no real resolutions or solutions to things,” McPhee says. “My desire is for people to think about things and feel things.” She is less interested in making ecological statements than in conveying a particular experience. For “The Home and the World” (2001), she traveled to Kolkata, India to document the domestic architecture of the landed elite, navigating the unpeopled interiors and courtyards and emphasizing the clash between Indian cultural history and contemporary living.
Laura McPhee’s color photographs capture subtle histories, forgotten spaces, and landscapes dominated by human technology. Her constantly evolving practice has grown to include portraits, landscapes, interiors, and the tensions that open up in each between the cultural and the natural. “I think that things evolve, that there are no real resolutions or solutions to things,” McPhee says. “My desire is for people to think about things and feel things.” She is less interested in making ecological statements than in conveying a particular experience. For “The Home and the World” (2001), she traveled to Kolkata, India to document the domestic architecture of the landed elite, navigating the unpeopled interiors and courtyards and emphasizing the clash between Indian cultural history and contemporary living.
