This is the second installment of my World's Fair Project as presented on the Huffington Post. In the first, I looked at some of the Fair architecture from the 1950's and 1960's, representatives of the world's cultural obsession with outer space. In this installment, I am pleased to present the remaining landscapes and urban parks from several world's sites in the United States and Europe.
World's Fairs typically were used by the hosting city as a reason to develop an urban site that was previously unused. Some of these sites were marshes, forests, or simply sprawling fields. A lot of my photographs examine a return to nature as weeds and plants would overgrow the exposition pavilions; in many cases, there was no real concrete proof that this huge event ever took place, except for the magnificent park that was developed as a direct result.
In this group of photographs, the parks represent two different ideas: either the nature and wilderness of the park itself, or the specific geographic location in the park where the fair architecture once stood or still exists. Each title alludes to these locations and ideas. The parks shown here are Jackson Park in Chicago, Grant Park in Chicago, Audobon Park in New Orleans, Flushing Meadows in Queens, Parc du Cinquentenaire in Brussels, Delaware Park in Buffalo, and again, Flushing Meadows in Queens.
In the last image I have mapped out where the 'Town of Tomorrow' once stood from the 1939 World's Fair. The Fair was called the 'World of Tomorrow,' epitomizing the future-looking attitude of the time. The actual place in the park where this attraction once stood now exists as a rather nondescript bit of grass and trees. I decided to make a long exposure at sundown, causing an oversaturation of the film I was shooting with and creating a feeling of subdued expectations and lost hope.
Enjoy the pictures.
The World's Fair Project: The Parks
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