TRAVELOGUE

Travelogue is an photographic archive, taken from research for Mappa Mundi, an ongoing project on the geopolitical significance of former World’s Fair sites in North America. World’s Fairs offered the spectacle of both technology and ethnography, presenting a utopian idea of global harmony. Remnants of a century of World’s Fairs still stand in many cities. These anachronistic structures can be functional tourist attractions or empty ruins, but often the site of the fair has been entirely swallowed by the growth of the city.

The photographs were taken during visits to the more than 15 sites in North America that hosted World’s Fairs. These images show aspects of each former fairground as it is today- most of them sites of recreation and cultural activity. Captions/commentary hint at urban narratives of public space, gentrification, nostalgia, placemaking and place-forgetting. Occasionally, a trace of the site’s “global” past is visible—an historic marker, or a glimpse of an iconic structure given new life or fallen into disrepair.

Travelogue includes documentation of Portland (Lewis & Clark Centennial Exposition, 1905), Seattle (Century 21 Exposition, 1962), Spokane (Expo ’74), San Francisco (Panama Pacific International Exposition, 1915 and Golden Gate International Exposition, 1939-40), St Louis (Louisiana Purchase Exposition, 1904), Chicago (Worlds Columbia Exposition, 1893 and A Century of Progress, 1933-34), Montreal (Expo ’67), New York City (New York World’s Fair, 1939-40 and 1964), and Knoxville (Expo '82).