aurora

AURORA explores the vernacular landscape of Aurora, Kansas, birthplace of Alain LeTourneau’s paternal grandfather. In this series, LeTourneau uses medium-format photographs, family ephemera, iPhone images, and Van Dyke Brown contact prints to examine intersections of geography and genealogy: the town, laid-out in a grid of eleven blocks, is clearly marked by a more prosperous past. The visible decay of Aurora parallels the corporeal decay of families: time passes, and erodes memory, bodies, and wood, brick, and iron. AURORA observes the flip side of increasing urbanization, the move away from vast landscapes to a densely built environment, in which the idea of “cultivation” is associated more with financial accomplishment and individual refinement than with seeds and earth.