Capricious selected CRCC research associate Matt Gainer as their photographer of the week on April 18. They posted a portion of images from his series Imperial Pictures on the website.
Gainer received funding for the project from IRG and CRCC partnered with him on a California Council for the Humanities grant.
An excerpt from the article:
Matt tells us, “I began photographing and doing oral-history interviews in Imperial Valley, CA. in 2009 — drawn by curiosity about the impulses that draw people to such difficult terrain, and about the kinds of psychological spaces and physical geographies they navigate to create a sense of place, value and community once they settle.
I received a California Story Fund grant from the California Council for the Humanities to support the project during 2009-2010, and additional support in the form of a Faculty Research Award from the USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture Interdisciplinary Research Group for 2011. Portions of the project were exhibited in 2011: first in a two-person exhibition at the Contemporary Art Gallery of the Brukenthal National Museum in Sibiu, Romania, and recently in a group exhibition at the Houston Center for Photography.”