When the Municipal is Macabre: 'Eleven Long Exposures' by Lyn Corelle at May Day Cafe

 

In the long tradition of muckraking, the photojournalist has a few options. It’s often justifiable to be loud. The best of conflict or disaster photography will tear the curtains away from the proverbial window, sounding an alarm and mobilizing the public to action. But sometimes, the photojournalist may have better results documenting the curtains themselves. If the facts are hidden, what’s obscuring them? Lyn Corelle’s current exhibition Eleven Long Exposures uses the latter approach at May Day Cafe. In a series of aluminum panels taken after dark at Powderhorn Park, the photographer sheds a nightlight on the hidden histories within a seemingly mundane topic: water management in South Minneapolis.

Like much of Corelle’s other work, this exhibition uses the neighborhood minutiae of city life to explore something wilder. Eleven Long Exposures takes place in the same universe as Make the Golf Course a Public Sex Forest and Single Family Homes in the Year 3030? The show also gets at some of the same questions: who decides how we use urban space, and why, and how, and why not something different? In their characteristically matter-of-fact artist statement, Corelle describes Powderhorn Park’s acquisition by the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board in 1890 and the city’s subsequent planning agenda, including the construction of Interstate 35, which contributed to the park’s current tendency to flood. Corelle, dryly referring to the park board as “dutiful colonists,” invites viewers to consider the tangle of municipal variables at play here and the human cost involved. Twin Cities locals will recall that I-35 was part of the midcentury race toward an interstate highway system, in which highways were often carved into communities deemed afterthoughts by city officials. In these photographs, the park itself absorbs the toll that the highway took on residents. Corelle concludes by describing the steamy fog that hovers above pooling water during the spring and summer, which appears to be visible in a photo or two — see one shot of a lakeside picnic table, engulfed in the hazy night air.

 

Top: Lyn Corelle, untitled (8), photo on aluminum, 12 x 16". Bottom: Installation shot at May Day Cafe. Images courtesy of the artist.

 

The photographs are suspended throughout the bustling cafe by utilitarian strands of chain. At first glance, the visitor might think they’re looking at a coffee shop full of darkened computer monitors. The effect is jarring at May Day Cafe, which was filled with its typical assortment of bold, colorful flyers when I visited. This juxtaposition invites a more intimate look at the panels and dictates a peculiar choreography through the show. Once the viewer squints closer at a panel, nighttime scenes start to emerge. The images offer glimpses of an evening spent tiptoeing through the park: picnic tables, playground equipment, foliage and chain link fencing come into view. Each image unfolds piecemeal as one walks along the perimeter of the cafe, fading into the dark as the next one becomes visible. Set just blocks from the park, without context the photos read like nostalgic reminders of after-curfew fun. Set against the historical context of the park, the aluminum panels read like stills from a longform crime scene. Just as Corelle’s artist statement requires the reader to read between the lines, they also request scrutiny in navigating the exhibition itself. 

Corelle’s choice of medium lends heft to the subject matter. While the viewer can perceive each image only momentarily and from fixed positions throughout the cafe, they will remember the solidity and weight of both the panels and the stories they gesture at. The effect is serious, but dreamlike — a ghostly mnemonic device for a land-use history of Powderhorn. ◼︎  

 

Lyn Corelle, untitled (7), photo on aluminum, 12 x 16".

Eleven Long Exposures is on view at May Day Cafe through November 9. To see more of Lyn Corelle's work, follow them on Instagram @lyncorelle.