I-26, Corridor of Change
Rob Amberg, Madison County, North Carolina
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Abstract:
Through an extensive archive of photographs
and interviews begun in the mid-1990s, Rob Amberg documents the
construction of a nine-mile section of U.S.
Interstate Highway 26 (I-26)
through rural, mountainous Madison County, North Carolina. This essay presents Amberg's ongoing documentary of the I-26 corridor, updated as the photographer makes new images available to Southern Spaces. |
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About Rob Amberg's Work:
I have been photographing, interviewing,
and collecting along the site of the I-26 Corridor since
1994. This has involved coverage of the mapping, core rock
sampling, removal, destruction, and construction phases of
the project. Highway work, and my documentation of it, continued until 2003. To date, I have produced over 10,000 negatives, 110 finished prints, 25 oral history interviews and collected boxes of other narrative information and artifacts from the Corridor. |
My photography and writing from Madison County
are concerned with time, place and memory. The work is also
about relationships, personal expression, detail and texture,
framing, and curiosity about how something "real" might look
as a photograph. My work is also about change and, to some
degree, about affecting social change. Using pictures as a
tool for social change was my earliest motivation in photography,
although my illusions about affecting change in anyone have
evolved over the years. But mostly, what I do is all about
time and place and memory. So, for the next little bit, I would
like to share some of my work from Madison County and relate
some of what I have learned along the way.
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"I-20: Corridor of Change" is part of the 2008 Southern Spaces series "Space, Place, and Appalachia," a collection of publications exploring Appalachian geographies through multimedia presentations.
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