Sylvia de Swaan

Art & Documentary Photographer
     
Where Will You Spend Eternity
Location: Utica, New York
Nationality: Romanian Born/Now Ukraine
Biography: I’m a Romanian born art and documentary photographer who works on several long-term projects concurrently, often informed or influenced by world events. Thus my longest running work, "Return," currently titled, "Narratives:... MORE
Public Story
Where Will You Spend Eternity
Copyright Sylvia de Swaan 2024
Date of Work Dec 1969 - Ongoing
Updated Jul 2018
Topics Abandonment, Aging, Architecture, Capitalism, Christianity, Documentary, Environment, Fine Art, Immigration, Landscape, Photography, Street

"Where Will You Spend Eternity," about how small cities and towns struggle to adapt to our fast changing world

Roaming around Utica's crumbling old factory buildings and rubble strewn railroad tracks often brings to mind the poem "Ozymandias" by Percy Bysshe Shelley, about hubris and the decline of civilizations"¦.which ends with the lines

""¦..nothing beside remains.....Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
the lone and level sands stretch far away."

Utica is a former industrial town that is ever seeking to renew its commercial base and identity. Recent waves of immigration from the war zones in Asia, Eastern Europe and Africa are helping stem the steady population decline - and a "rust to green" project initiated through Cornell University hopes to help promote better integration of urban, ecological and community systems and needs."-

"Where Will You Spend Eternity" is about the complexity, drama and poetry of this time and place with a touch of irony and compassion.

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Where Will You Spend Eternity by Sylvia de Swaan
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