Desvergnes, Robbins, Sole in Mississippi

 
The Delta region of northern Mississippi is a much-photographed region of the American South, and three of the most distinguished among these photographers are showing their work in the Mississippi Delta, either now or in he next couple of months.

Columbia, SC-based photographer Kathleen Robbins and French photographer Alain Desvergnes have shows up now at the University Museum of the University of Mississippi, at Oxford.

Robbins' show opens today and is up through August 3rd, 2013. Desvergnes' show opened in March and is up through August 17th, 2013.

Honorary Southern photographer Magdalena Solé' will open a show of her work at the Cassidy Bayou Gallery, in the Cassidy Bayou Art Center, at 103 Court Street,  in Sumner, MS., opening May 11th, 2013 and up until June 15th, 2013.

All these shows are, in a sense, about the world around Oxford, Mississippi. 

Alain Desvergnes' work (see image below) is from his series of images Yoknapatawpha, Mississippi, 1963 - 65, made around Oxford when he taught at the university.

Desvergnes was inspired to make this work, we are told, because of his fascination with the work of William Faulkner, long-time Oxford resident, who set most of his novels in fictional Yoknapatawpha County, a county in the Mississippi Delta very much like the land around Oxford, Mississippi.

Robbins' work (see image at the top of this blog entry) is from her Into the Flat Land portfolio, work made in the Mississippi Delta where Robbins' parents and grandparents lived, and where Robbins was born.

The world Desvergnes shows us is the world of Robbins' ancestors, the world that was fading away and turning into the Mississippi of Robbins' work while Robbins was growing up.

Solé's work is, like Robbins', set in today's Delta, and is from her New Delta Rising portfolio (see image above).

All this work is strong photography in and of and about the South.

These folks, and their work, will offer residents of the Mississippi Delta to see themselves,  and their part of the South,  from the perspective of insiders and of outsiders, as we all, all Southerners, do.