10.02 2024

Commencement: Groundwork

Works by Zoe Strauss and the 3212 Think Tank
October 4th – November 18th 2024
Opening Reception Friday, October 4th from 7pm to 9pm
Space 1026
844 North Broad Street, Philadelphia

Space 1026 is pleased to present Commencement: Groundwork, one of the first steps in an ongoing and developing exhibition by photographer Zoe Strauss.

Strauss is known internationally for her vision of the world highlighting the constants and the changes that reside in the same place as shown through her photography. Strauss’ photographs challenge the authority of the image through repetition, context shift, and historical reframing. While rooted in reality, her images assert themselves as subjective pictures of the world as we feel it as well as how we see it, and cast doubts and propose questions about the veracity of the documentary image.

This exhibit is an introduction, a prologue if you will, of work that points to specific concerns about place and space and makes us ask basic questions about our perception of what is reality. The world we are living in together, at this very moment, is always a balance between here and there. The question Strauss poses is are we seeing, evaluating, and judging things in their entirety or are we the parable of the blind men and the elephant? What are the limits and objectivity of documentary photography? As we stand on the ground, this exhibit asks us to recognize that as it is above, so it is below.

Commencement began as an examination of what it is to be a person living in America among the ever increasing anxieties and critical situations around the globe. It was initially conceived in 2016 as the foundation for a Guggenheim Fellowship Award, which Strauss received the following year. With the cataclysmic upheaval in society and p