shashasha

After two opening photographs, one of a sublime scene of sun rays filtered through trees in a meadow, the other of an old wooden building slowly being reclaimed by nature, Ian Bates opens his photobook “Meadowlark” with the poem “I Believe” by the American poet Jim Harrison.
What follows is a photographic exploration of—or rather a photographic wandering through—the American Midwest. Shot for seven years between 2014 and 2021, with Bates himself aging from 24 to 31, “Meadowlark” depicts barren and stark landscapes, people in battered clothes and scraggly beards, buildings barely holding it together or those that have given up and collapsed. There is little place for dreams in Bates’ photographs, but nonetheless a serene sense of beauty. Although “Meadowlark” does take an unromantic look at reality, it also does not forget what makes life worth living.

“Every photographer is essentially exploring outer space, but in Meadowlark Bates is in deep space, and these are photos that are as reticent as their subjects. This world doesn’t much nurture silence, but it’s still out there, a stealth force, a glacier, and in the places it lives it can hear things coming from a long way away.”
― from the publisher’s description