SOUTHERN RITES
2020-06-08American photographer Gillian Laub has spent the last two decades investigating political conflicts, exploring family relationships, and challenging assumptions about cultural identity. Her work frequently addresses the experiences of adolescents and young adults in transition who struggle to understand their present moment and collective past.
In 2002, Laub was sent on a magazine assignment to Mount Vernon, Georgia, to document the lives of teenagers in the American South. The Montgomery County residents Laub encountered were warm and polite, both proud of their history and protective of their neighbors. To the photographer, Mount Vernon, a town nestled among fields of Vidalia onions, symbolized the archetype of pastoral, small town American life. Yet this idyllic town was also held hostage by a dark past, manifesting in the racial tensions that scar much of American history. Laub learned that the joyful adolescent rites of passage celebrated in this rural countryside—high school homecomings and proms—were still racially segregated.
Opposite – Prom king and queen, dancing at the black prom, Vidalia, Georgia, 2009
Exhibition runs through to December 12th, 2020
Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture
1000 Hilltop Cir
Baltimore
MD 21250
