Friday, Dec. 18th 5pm-12am and Saturday Dec. 19th 9am-5pm
then by appointment into January.
In the December show Megan presents two series
Decampment and Little Boxes.
Megan first started taking pictures at the age of four
when she picked up the family Polaroid and began documenting the lives of
her toys. At age nine, she joined 4H club and used it as an outlet for her
work. There, she won state and country photography competitions, including
the “Best of the Best” Illinois state award. By twelve, she had her first
paying job.
Megan was kicked out of her conservative Christian
school at age fifteen. Her parents began to get concerned after she
generally became a recluse and stopped witnessing the light of day. After
an attempt to reintroduce her to society, she came across an abandoned
house. She was very intrigued by it, and the obsession began.
She began taking road trips to towns that had
experienced an economic downfall and took photographs of the buildings
left behind. This later became her “Decampment” series which was published
in the international fine art photography magazine, Eyemazing. Later, this
collection was published in the Australian culture magazine, Kurv,
alongside Heath Ledger and Paris Hilton. Her work has been blogged about
by Janet Jackson and on some of the top art and design blogs.
In 2008, she began working on a new series, entitled
“Little Boxes”. The
work is a continuation of “Decampment” with a stronger emphasis on the
structures themselves rather than on the people who left them.
In 2009, at the age of seventeen, she moved to
Chicago. She currently spends her time photographing interesting buildings
across the US, touring with musicians, and trying to figure out city
living.
____________________________________________
Decampment (2006) :
In 2006, when I was 14 and 15, my mom, my best friend, and I hit the road
all across Illinois to find abandoned buildings. We had a lot of
adventures. I had a collection of music I played any time I was editing,
shooting, or driving, songs about abandonment.... songs about people being
abandoned, relationships, these things all tied in with my series. The
relationships between people (or lack there of) in my photos are just as
strong as the relationships between the people and the houses...not there,
empty, gone, abandoned. People can relate to this. Having an artist
statement isn't a huge priority for me, I like the fact that my photos can
speak for themselves. Whenever someone tells me what they feel or think
when they see my photos, they are spot on. The feeling of being abandoned,
rejected, empty, deserted, it's something people can relate to. It doesn't
matter how happy you are, it's happened at least once in your life, no
matter how small it seems... like the time when you were five, on the
playground, and the other kids didn't like you. The time the girl/boy you
liked, didn't like you back. The time someone you trusted let you down.
You moved on and got new friends, you ended up liking someone else, you
learned to stop trusting that person... you weren't stuck there by boards,
nails, vines, and forgotten about though. Decampment means "to leave
suddenly." Most buildings I'm around seem as if that is what happened, as
if one day the people living in them were plucked off the earth, suddenly
disappearing into a dark hole, unnoticed and unreachable by past
companions. Which leads me to my next series...
____________________________________________
Little Boxes (2008-):
In 2008, at 16 and 17, I found that my love for the back roads was far too
strong to ignore. My interest, while still neglected structures, now not
so much the mystery of the people who left them, but instead the buildings
themselves. They are buildings tucked away that you will never see. There
are structures you will never pay attention to. They are like portals
opening onto another, more solitary plane dissimilar from the one they
exist in. They are like looking into a black hole.
What I want to represent from this body of work are the
parallels between this earth, and those black holes. There are stories you
will never hear, and circumstances you will never understand. There are
things that will leave you, there are things that will fade away. There
are good situations you wish you could cling to but simply cannot. Then
the things you felt you could never go without, will go on without you,
old scarves blowing in the cold wind and ghost towns without any ghosts.
At any antique mall you may find at the end of town, the side of the
interstate, along a gravel road, I bet you somewhere, in a dark corner and
at the bottom of a shelf, there is a dusty little box with a lock, and a
missing key. A key that no one will find, and so a box that won’t be
opened. A story you will never know, a little box lost in time.
In 2006, when I was 14 and 15, my mom, my best friend, and I hit the road
all across Illinois to find abandoned buildings. We had a lot of
adventures. I had a collection of music I played any time I was editing,
shooting, or driving, songs about abandonment.... songs about people being
abandoned, relationships, these things all tied in with my series. The
relationships between people (or lack there of) in my photos are just as
strong as the relationships between the people and the houses...not there,
empty, gone, abandoned. People can relate to this. Having an artist
statement isn't a huge priority for me, I like the fact that my photos can
speak for themselves. Whenever someone tells me what they feel or think
when they see my photos, they are spot on. The feeling of being abandoned,
rejected, empty, deserted, it's something people can relate to. It doesn't
matter how happy you are, it's happened at least once in your life, no
matter how small it seems... like the time when you were five, on the
playground, and the other kids didn't like you. The time the girl/boy you
liked, didn't like you back. The time someone you trusted let you down.
You moved on and got new friends, you ended up liking someone else, you
learned to stop trusting that person... you weren't stuck there by boards,
nails, vines, and forgotten about though. Decampment means "to leave
suddenly." Most buildings I'm around seem as if that is what happened, as
if one day the people living in them were plucked off the earth, suddenly
disappearing into a dark hole, unnoticed and unreachable by past
companions. Which leads me to my next series...
In 2008, at 16 and 17, I found that my love for the back roads was far too
strong to ignore. My interest, while still neglected structures, now not
so much the mystery of the people who left them, but instead the buildings
themselves. They are buildings tucked away that you will never see. There
are structures you will never pay attention to. They are like portals
opening onto another, more solitary plane dissimilar from the one they
exist in. They are like looking into a black hole.