Machu Picchu, Peru, 2007 by Jessica Auer

Jessica Auer photographs the world's most photographed places: Niagara Falls, Machu Picchu, Yellowstone National Park. Each of these "natural" destinations has also become a part of travel vernacular— representational as emblems of the concept of traveling itself. The places Auer visits are often overrun by other visitors, hankering to document that they were there, then proliferating the images they make, thus making the photographs of the place even more ubiquitous. It is an exponentially expanding representation, supporting the economy of tourism that—ironically—depends on the continued preservation of the place.

Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming #2, 2007 by Jessica Auer

Auer, who hails from Canada, writes, "This on-going project invites the viewer to consider the historical and cultural significance of these places as well question the tourist's responsibility in observing these sites." What is the tourist's responsibility in observation? Does photographing a destination further objectify the place? Or is it simply part of the act of travel? Auer asks these questions as she arrives as dual photographer and tourist, and tries to create an image that both encompasses all other photographs of a place, but is also differentiated from them.

Leaning Tower by Beth Dow

I am reminded of Beth Dow's spring 2009 solo exhibition at Jen Bekman Gallery, Ruins, which looks at how we "appropriate and approximate the romance of ruins into modern American environments." Dow remarks on falsely constructed antiquity suggesting that we sometimes place greater value in the sentiment of a place than the place itself. Seeing the Leaning Tower of Pisa in the Midwest is perhaps as satisfying for some as seeing the real thing, even if we are aware it is not authentic.

Auer's photographs also suggest a similar anachronism and conflict with authenticity: visitors can transplant themselves to a pristine and preserved Machu Picchu and adopt the experience of the 15th Century Incas, while otherwise firmly rooted in their modern lives. To preserve a place so that it remains the same over time suggests that its quality of un-changing is what is valued, rather than its history, natural beauty, or the tremendous efforts required to preserve what was there to begin with.

Head to Jessica's website to see more work including additional mages from Re-creational Spaces.