Persistence of love.

The photographic record by Chris Mottalini of the assortment of school bus shelters, scattered across the greater Buffalo, New York landscape, appears to be driven by a sentimental urgency instead of an aesthetic one. “Parents build these sentry-like structures”, he says, “in order to protect their children from the brutal Buffalo winters”. Though these strange and fascinating examples of “amateur architecture” are created for a specific need, over time the structures lose their function and become merely parts of their surroundings, as persistent acts of affection. “These structures are representative of the universal impulse of care, which undercuts the narrative of neglect and abandonment that the mention of Buffalo (my hometown) usually invokes. The heart of the work for me is capturing the material products of human concern and emotion”.

Photo:

© Courtesy of Chris Mottalini

www.mottalini.com

(click on the image at right for more pictures)