Water Mill’s Townsend Gallery presents “Meet Your Neighbor,” an online exhibition by Sag Harbor artist Lindsay Morris. Townsend has collaborated with Morris to reimagine her 2020 brick-and-mortar exhibition of the same name as a decentralized, interactive presentation.
On view at www.townsend-gallery.com until May 16, “Meet Your Neighbor” is comprised of photography and audio anecdotes. Its universal theme centers on the people of our communities, and the realization that we often know very little about them. Morris then expands on this concept to explore the underlying circumstances that have recently shifted the makeup of her small town.
“Meet Your Neighbor” combines two distinct yet interrelated projects which document some of the last of Eastern Long Island’s small houses and the people who occupy them. The initial component includes personal, multipart portraits and began in 2018 when Morris asked the simple question: “Who are the people who live next door?”
She put herself inside foreign but familiar homes, photographed foreign but familiar faces and personal objects that told something of their history. The second, complementary strand began in 2020 and presents reverent photographic documentations of these often ill-fated homes.
According to the U.S. census, the size of a typical single-family home expanded from 983 square feet to 2,500 between 1950 and 2012. Morris had witnessed the modestly sized residences in her town being systematically demolished to make room for colossal, new builds and set out to memorialize these precious homes. Through an exacting process at her studio, she first extracts the modest houses from their original sites and then places them over nearby vacant spaces. Morris bestows a solemn send-off for these dwellings which now hover above their newly appointed landscapes.
The Detroit born artist has been using the medium of photography for more than three decades to create compelling images for the documentary and fine art sectors. With “Meet Your Neighbor,” Morris continues her exploration into the people and communities that surround her. Through her work, difficult stories are presented with care and dignity.
Morris has recently mounted two solo exhibitions: one at the Arts Center at Duck Creek, and one at Guild Hall, both in East Hampton. She has been included in numerous group exhibitions at venues including the International Center of Photography, Newport Art Museum, and the Parrish Art Museum. Her work has been published widely in magazines such as Marie Claire International, Vanity Fair Italia, New York Magazine, TIME Magazine + TIME Lightbox, and The New York Times Magazine.