Annie Dreyer
STATEMENT
This body of work was photographed on intermittent trips to my hometown of Kansas City between the Summer of 2019 and the Spring of 2020. Growing up in a mid-sized, midwestern city, I developed an aversion to the suburban environment in which I was raised. Making New York City my "college town" felt like the most logical step in escaping all that is mundane.
Returning on trips home, I eventually found a new affinity for the environment I had once fled from. Time spent at home became an investigation into the long-standing public places whose existence we expect but also overlook, ultimately uncovering a landscape filled with public displays of signage, typography, and, at times, humor. This collection of photographs has become both a means of personal reconciliation with my childhood surroundings and a representation of a desolate mid-American economy and lifestyle.