The British photographer captures fragments of America through the narrow frame of a train window, offering a moving narrative and visual journey along nearly 16,000 kilometers of railway tracks.
“Portrait of America” is Katie Edwards’ first solo exhibition, hosted by the Observatory Photography Gallery in London. This young British photographer covers a wide range of themes, from editorial commissions (the transgender community in Fiji, behind the scenes at the Birmingham Royal Ballet) to personal projects (the view of London during lockdown, the diverse landscapes of different countries). This traveler’s work is frequently featured in The Guardian and on the BBC. Here, she takes us on a road trip—or, perhaps, a train trip. Over 16,000 kilometers and 180 hours of travel, she crossed the United States three times, from New York to Chicago, from Los Angeles to Seattle, and from Chicago to San Francisco, capturing its facets through the lens of a train window. One of the great strengths of the photographer’s project is her companion, guide, and observer: her father, who uses a wheelchair. During this rail journey, he positioned himself at the front of the carriage to alert her via walkie-talkie to any significant events.
SPACE AND TIME
Her series documents unique moments of life and rural and urban landscapes that unfold at the speed of Amtrak trains. Through plays on framing, depth of field, symmetry, and the interconnection of places and moments, Katie Edwards offers a variation of light, textures, and matte, vintage hues. "The train seemed to dictate the speed of time, spatially expanding or shrinking the world," she explains.
Some photographs resemble landscape paintings, revealing contrasting bands of color, like the clear sky, the snow-capped peaks, the transparent lake, and the verdant nature. Others evoke a visual poetry (a bent tree giving the impression of forming a circle), or combine improbable shapes (a row of school buses parked facing mountains lit by the dawn sun), or even play with symmetries (a Chicago alleyway perfectly aligned with the power lines and the road that intersects the railway).
"The compression of space within the confined frame of a train window, juxtaposed with the slow and progressive nature of the journey, allowed me to discover and document the nation, capturing in a unique way the immediacy of the present and the continuity of the journey through time."
SCREENINGS
Urban and industrial areas, stretches of farmland, silos, cemeteries, rocky deserts, rivers, animals, perpendicular roads… The result is prodigious.
The photographer doesn't hesitate to inject humor into the frame (campers flash their behinds as they watch a train pass by on the river beaches of Utah), nor to subtly slip surrealism into the panorama (the rungs of a ladder give the impression "of being able to climb the mountain in just a few steps"), nor, of course, to make room for "the quintessence of suburban America." For example, this "wood-paneled house, where an American flag hangs, a homeowner mows his lawn, a small stroller sits on the porch, and a little sign reads 'You are sunshine.'"
Katie Edwards then steps back from her subject and examines the whole through panoramic images. A single panorama encompasses her entire rail adventure, thus telling a beautiful story of time and space, movement and the moment. "If this mosaic of the journey were a page in a book, then the individual train windows would be the words that form sentences, then paragraphs."
“KATIE EDWARDS – PORTRAIT OF AMERICA”
THE OBSERVATORY PHOTOGRAPHY GALLERY
64 Marchmont Street, London (England)
UNTIL JANUARY 25, 2025
THEOBSERVATORY.ORG
KDEDWARDS.COM
