Whirlpool #48 Zion by Jim Goldberg

This project, Whirlpool, began in 2019 from a commission by the High Museum of Art as part of their Picturing the South collection. The Obscura Curated commission has allowed me to continue this project and go deeper.

I worked in a small, racially mixed, and working-class town by the name of Augusta, AR. Located along the White River in Arkansas’s Delta region, its heyday had long passed with the gradual decline of steamships and use of the river. I was fascinated by the small-town life and its history, the landscape, the hunting culture, the complicated familial ties, and the delicate dynamics of race and economic status that lived there. It was complex and stood out to me as a true reflection of contemporary American consciousness at this moment.

The work received its name from the White River, which at one time was the lifeblood of Augusta. In the river, many literal and metaphoric whirlpools are created by opposing currents, and tensions within the community and in the country at large.

Edition: 1 of 1

Commissioned by Obscura