The Consumerist Forest
Liam Darby
The Consumerist Forest is a collection of images documenting the entropy of contemporary American society through the documentation of various abandoned and disused buildings. While images from all over the Midwest’s “Rust Belt’’ are present in this exhibition, special attention and focus is placed upon the Northridge Mall and Servite Woods neighborhoods in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The goal is to bring awareness to the current entropic life cycle in America under current economic and environmental conditions and to preserve these buildings, through photography’s innate ability to inform the viewer about both the past and the future, and its ability to appropriate the object or environment that has been photographed. Through the use of color film photography, a timeless quality is evoked. The viewer experiences these places firsthand, often in a first-person point-of-view, immersing the viewer in the photograph and creating a miniature world. The immersive nature of these photographs is used to bring awareness to the realities and impact of Planned Obsolescence, consumerist culture, and the impact of an overly capitalistic society on neighborhoods, environments and greater community is seen and explored throughout this body of work.
From the boarded up windows and dead bushes that imply a sense of desolation and forgottenness, the unkempt bushes and trees that have become overgrown following their abandonment, to the candy striped orange and white smokestack of the old Oscar Mayer plant that juts out of the winter landscape and commands center stage in the photograph, which signifies that this place, while shuttered, pollutes the air with the noxious fumes that billow from the smokestack. These all signify that these buildings have not been occupied or in use for some time, while the usage of color in this body of work also references the age of many of the buildings, informing the viewer that these buildings are from another time and were left to waste away and weather, only furthering their erasure and decay.
While much of this decay is caused by humans through vandalism such as broken glass, graffiti, and wheatpastes, nature also plays a part in the decay and overgrowth, with various plants and landscapes growing out of control, and the buildings exposed to weathering from the elements and the sun. It is as if Nature is sending the message, that while humans can erase and forget and design their creations to decay, nature cannot be erased, and eventually reclaims what it once had.
Liam Darby is a photographer from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who spends his time traveling between Milwaukee, WI and Cleveland, OH. He got his start artistically by taking pictures of his friends, neighborhood, and nature in the Milwaukee metro area. He is a graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Art's Class of 2021, and received his B.F.A in Photography and Videography.