Episode #163: Photographer Catherine Opie describes her intentions behind the permanent installation "Somewhere in the Middle" (2011) at Hillcrest Hospital, a branch of Cleveland Clinic, in Mayfield Heights, Ohio. Created specifically for the hospital setting, the installation consists of 22 photographs taken from the shores of Lake Erie near Opie's hometown of Sandusky, Ohio. It is Opie's hope that the photographs provide a space for patients, doctors, vistors and hospital employees to experience an ethereal moment during what may be a difficult time in their lives.

 

Catherine Opie investigates the ways in which photographs both document and give voice to social phenomena in America today, registering people's attitudes and relationships to themselves and others, and the ways in which they occupy the landscape. Working between conceptual and documentary approaches to image making, Opie examines familiar genres—portraiture, landscape, and studio photography—in surprising uses of serial images, unexpected compositions, and the pursuit of radically different subject matters in parallel. 

 

Learn more about the artist at: http://www.art21.org/artists/catherine-opie

 

CREDITS: Producer: Ian Forster. Consulting Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Wesley Miller & Susan Sollins. Camera: Mark Falstad & Laura Paglin. Sound: Darryl Dickenson & Heidi Hesse. Editor: Lizzie Donahue & Morgan Riles. Artwork Courtesy: Catherine Opie. Special Thanks: Cleveland Clinic. Theme Music: Peter Foley.