Marianna #XVII 2019

Curator: The photographic work before us is titled "Marianna #XVII" by Wesaam Al-Badry, created in 2019. It's an example of contemporary street photography. Editor: My initial reaction is a sense of desolation. The overcast sky and the cracked asphalt leading uphill…it speaks of decline, almost a post-industrial melancholia. Curator: That feeling is partly born of the scene itself. Al-Badry captures the physical degradation that’s symptomatic of many post-industrial communities—areas grappling with economic shifts, political marginalization and its aftereffects, or neglect. Those skid marks could speak to a kind of defiance or desperation. Editor: Skid marks indeed, violent interruptions cutting into the grey silence. And consider the toppled barriers, not merely a practical hazard but symbolically charged. Is this a community barricading itself, or are the barriers external? There’s a primal feeling. I think of similar markings in Paleolithic caves. It seems humankind marks landscapes, even wounds them. Curator: Absolutely, we could read them as markers of conflict. The street photography genre in itself holds the gaze, capturing mundane, often politically loaded moments that invite us to ask "how did things get to this point, and for whom is this mundane?" Editor: And it also raises questions about community and the individual's place within it. The solitary road going up into the trees hints at individual paths versus collective experiences in places forgotten. This photo leaves an unsettling mark. Curator: It reminds us that these landscapes hold histories, often complex and contradictory ones, shaping the lived realities of their inhabitants. Photography like this helps to uncover and prompt inquiry. Editor: It makes one pause and appreciate art’s capacity to freeze an instant which invites us to reevaluate broader cultural patterns. Curator: Indeed, bringing both personal meaning and wider contexts to our present.