These constraints delineate my route and process, but within these strictures lie opportunities for spontaneity, drifting, and subversion. Everyday I take the same walk and restrict myself to photographing one object or space which captivates me. Caught somewhere between art and life, private and social experience, and repetition and chance, this project exists in the lineage of Happenings. What is gleaned is often fragmentary and discrete however, even the most ostensibly ordinary landscape is imprinted with so much – time, history, growth, decay, politics, and wonder. Time spent with the everyday spaces, objects, and rhythms of daily life reveals a wealth of information, most of which hides in plain sight. But where is our life? Where is our body? Where is our space?” Perec wrote, “We sleep through our lives in a dreamless sleep. He advocated for an anthropology of the banal, a method of sorts in which the habitual is scrutinized with intensity. Georges Perec coined the term infra-ordinary to characterize the mundane features of everyday life – glass, concrete, utensils, our daily rhythms, the way we spend our time. My walks have been a vehicle for exploration, contemplation, and looking they have provided a structure in which to engage with the place in which I currently live. Taken along the same daily walk in my neighborhood, the photographs depict the commonplace objects and spaces that comprise what could be any typical suburban area. "An Index of Walking is a yearlong photographic project that explores the enigmatic intersection of memory, place, geography, and perception. Alper included the following abstract about this project: This series consists of 309 9圆” color photographs printed on 8 ½ x 11” sheets of Hahnemühle Final Art Pearl paper. The Ben Alper Photographs contain his series, An Index of Walking, which won the 2015 Archive of Documentary Arts Award for Documentations Working in North Carolina. Alper writes that "My walks have been a vehicle for exploration, contemplation, and looking they have provided a structure in which to engage with the place in which I currently live." Collection acquired as part of the Archive of Documentary Arts (Duke University). Taken along the same daily walk in his neighborhood, the photographs depict the commonplace objects and spaces that comprise what could be any typical suburban area. An Index of Walking is a yearlong photographic project that explores the enigmatic intersection of memory, place, geography, and perception. His series, An Index of Walking, won the 2015 Archive of Documentary Arts Award for Documentarians Working in North Carolina. Ben Alper is an artist based in North Carolina.
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