, The New York Times; I Photographed an Appalachian Family for 15 Years
[Kip Currier: This is a remarkable photographic essay shedding light on individual lived experiences in Appalachian Ohio, but also shared human connections and universal emotions of fear, longing, uncertainty, desperation, hope, and resilience.
I came away from the piece, probably like many other readers, wondering in what ways we as individuals and societies can provide more infrastructure and services -- not less -- to help fellow humans to break out of cycles of poverty and need.
The piece is even more poignant in light of the current government shutdown and disruptions in SNAP food assistance benefits for more than 40 million Americans.]
[Excerpt]
"Today, the toddler who ran playfully through Ms. McGarvey’s photographs is a high school graduate facing an uncertain future. Through her childhood and adolescence, Paige raised herself and took care of her younger brothers while her family moved frequently between small coal towns, without a stable place to land.
When I saw Ms. McGarvey’s project, I felt an immediate connection to Paige. As a teen I spent time in foster care and bounced between sleeping on friends’ sofas, in my car or in a shelter. The details in the photographs transported me back to that turbulent period: the detritus piled on the broken stovetop; the hours hanging out at McDonald’s; the world dissolving into weariness before you’re even old enough to drive.
Most of all, I recognized Ms. McGarvey’s project as an act of witnessing, documenting one family’s life in its daily tenderness, ordinary suffering and full complexity."
