Tracy Longley-Cook completed her M.F.A. degree in Photography at Arizona State University in the spring of 2007. Tracy received her B.F.A. in Photography at the University of Washington in 1997, and also spent a year studying at the Maine Photographic Workshops, 1994-95. She has exhibited her work internationally, and has been published in View Camera Magazine, Camera Arts and Alligator Juniper literary journal. Tracy is currently an Assistant Professor of Photography at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. These various objects were found in the bed of the Salt River located in Mesa, AZ just east of interstate 101 and north of interstate 202. Mainly populated by wildlife and transients, this area has become both a refuge and a dumping ground. Abandoned tents, homemade fire pits, and piles of debris are found amongst Cottonwood trees and wetland grasses. While photographing around the Salt River we began to discover and accumulate items that seemed to posses a narrative quality, acting as relics of a culture, time and place. The process of collecting and photographing became an act of anthropological fieldwork. First the artifact was documented as found and then removed from their original context and placed in a new, controlled setting. This collection presents a small study of contemporary populace, resulting in a body of evidence from which change and transformation can be recorded.

http://www.tracylongley-cook.com