On September 23, 2018, photographer Barry Phipps drove seven hours south from his home in 海角乱伦社区to his parents鈥 house in southern Missouri. There they wrestled a family heirloom into his car鈥攁 wooden table for his Aunt Diane鈥攁nd Barry and his mother drove more than twelve hundred miles to Di颅ane鈥檚 home on Florida鈥檚 Gulf Coast, stayed a few days, then drove back to Missouri.
Phipps presents the 104 color photographs in Driving a Table Down鈥攕elected from more than 2,000 photo颅graphs taken over the twelve-day trip鈥攊n sequential order to show, in his words, 鈥渨hat does and does not change as one travels through shifting cultural and geographic regions.鈥 By capturing the present mo颅ment while referencing the past with faded signs, al颅most obliterated murals, closed businesses in quiet towns, forgotten tourist attractions, and many other layers of historical accumulations, the photographs illustrate the stark fact that the present is never en颅tirely present tense. Phipps鈥檚 attention to the real-time details of rural regions of the Midwest and the South, juxtaposed with personal photographs of his family, gives us a momentary definition of America in a state of flux, an America that looks to the past in a time of an uncertain future.
