Filmmaker and photographer Phil Donohue portraits forgotten spaces and the sometimes lone people who inhabit them. Most of them seem to disappear shortly after he makes an image, unable to survive our current view of progress. In his 2019 book I dreamed it was better than it was, he explores the nostalgia of neglect and how we experience and remember these forgotten places in today’s digital age. The book is simultaneously an ode to the shopping malls, cultural centers, and physical structures that Phil grew up around and also a critique of the fact that some of our most precious memories are so deeply rooted in commerce that we have more feelings associated with a store, than we sometimes do our fellow man.
During this event, Phil Donohue discussed his work, including the new project “The Future Was Then: Midwest Futurism Now” that captures built works of midwestern origin that imbued an imaginative approach to the future in the past. It is an exploration of works of a promised future in an era of diminishing returns.
College Life Insurance Company Headquarters (Kevin Roche & John Dinkeloo, 1971), Indianapolis, Indiana, 2018. © Phil Donohue.
SUPPORT
To support this project, Phil Donohue is offering four self-printed inkjet prints of his photographic series “The Future Was Then.” All proceeds support the project “The Future Was Then” by Phil Donohue and presented by MAS Context. You can purchase the images here.
Video shot and edited by Matt Goetz of Omni Media & Marketing.
