Along the Ohio (Creating the North American Landscape). This item is unavailable.Along the Ohio (Creating the North American Landscape)

From its formation in Pittsburgh to its confluence with the Mississippi River at Cairo, Illinois, the Ohio River passes through a landscape that is, for photographer Andrew Borowiec, "both exotic and authentically American". Borowiec's 80 duotone images explore the cultural landscape of this region, presenting clapboard houses and white picket fences, pickup trucks and rusting sedans, back yards with satellite dishes or with barbecue grills made from 55 gallon oil drums. The pictures concentrate on the common scenes of everyday life and work, especially in the small, mostly blue-collar towns along the Ohio. The book illustrates the condition of a region that once was essential to the economic vitality of the United States. Many factories, once a source of prosperity, lie idle. Houses and banks stand boarded up and rusting machinery litters the river's edge. But Borowiec's camera finds a resilient strength, even among deteriorating homes - carefully mowed lawns or freshly painted fences are signs that residents still strive for pride and the American Dream, despite their less-than-ideal circumstances.

Andrew Borowiec has worked as a photojournalist, as the staff photographer for the International Center of Photography in New York City, and as the assistant director of workshops for the Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie in Arles, France. He has taught photography at Parsons School of Design, the New School for Social Research, Germantown Academy, and Oberlin College, and he is currently a professor of art at the University of Akron. He has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Ohio Arts Council, and in 1998 he received a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.