Macon, GA

I was born and raised in the “Heart of Georgia”, also known as Macon, GA. I went off to the University of Georgia to study Art History in 2011 and now live in Atlanta working as a photographer. About 6 months ago I started visiting Macon more regularly to document the landscape and architecture of my adolescence with the camera. A lot has changed since I was younger. The house I was born and raised in was sold a couple of years ago. My Dad is a widower that lives in a rented apartment. None of my friends live in Macon anymore. Seeing Macon with older eyes makes me wonder if it’s still my home. So much of what is familiar of my past is deteriorating rapidly and all that I have left are memories of what was once my home. These memories of my upbringing raise questions about what the nature of “home” is for me. I find myself meditating on the ephemeral and mutable nature of memory and its relationship to identity. If who I am is largely defined by my past experiences, then what happens to me as my memories and perceptions become latent and alter over time?

In the early 1960s my dad’s family moved from Western Germany to Macon to pursue the American Dream by starting a luxury furniture retail business. It worked out. Our family was defined by Tennis, the Country Club, Patek Philipe watches, Hermes ties, and imported luxury automobiles from Japan. Business was good for us and fostered an environment of stability, self-reliance, and luxury. My grandfather created his own micro wirtschaftswunder despite leaving Germany after the War. He even sponsored my private tennis lessons from a former Wimbledon semi-finalist. Macon was and is a typological American suburban town in that it produced a thriving culture for small businesses until it couldn’t. Right before 2008 business began to wane and migrate to Atlanta. Dad said that customers thought they couldn’t get anything nice in Macon so their wallets fled to Atlanta. Status isn’t bought locally.

Once the financial collapse of 2008 happened life was never the same. Life was great and prosperous then everything started to unravel. The business my grandfather started closed within 12 months of his passing and the financial collapse. Dad was out of work for at least a year and Mom started catering dinners for other people just to pay minimums on debt payments. I’ll never forget the stress my parents were under. I remember one day after school my Mom was frantically telling my brother and I that we might lose the house. That rocked my world as a 17 year old. Business after business closed in Macon and the economic landscape was altered indelibly.

Fast-forward almost ten years later to 2017, which is when my mother passed away from cancer. I had just moved to Atlanta after she was diagnosed in 2016, but I came back to Macon to visit regularly. I began to realize during my visits that the things that used to comfort me after 2008 became more akin to a panopticon of present sufferings. Everything felt like a continuation of life at home as it was defined by fatigue and decay. I still don’t understand why Dad had to watch my mom pass slowly into unconsciousness and death. That was the toughest part for me. The culmination of loss after loss led to a permanent mutation of Macon’s representation for me. So much of the town became referential of my mother’s cancer, the failure of a business, and the paradigm shift of our lifestyle. Our family conversations shifted from what’s happening now to remembrance of memories that are more pleasant than the present. Over the course of 25 years Macon endured a metamorphosis. It initially was a locus of birth, joy, and prosperity and then slowly emerged into becoming a corpus defined by decrepitude, grief, and loss.

When I think about who I am as a young man and what my story is thus far I realize that my own being is mostly comprised and preserved of memories both good and bad. Yet as I’ve grown into manhood I look back at all the events of the past and I feel gratitude for them. I wouldn’t have asked for any of these things to occur, but I see they stretched me at an early age and invited me to mature faster. I owe my resilience, tenacity, and determination to Macon, GA. That’s why I keep going back home and documenting the places I have the most potent memories and dreams of. Some memories are a recollection of elation while others are haunting and surreal.

These images and writings are, for me, the beginnings of seeing that which was previously invisible. In revisiting Macon I’ve found an opportunity to further accept my past while simultaneously allowing some things be left to mystery. It’s hard, but I’m trying to let my mind preserve and feast on memories of both pain and pleasure. Memories that are often times elusive and obscure.

Throughout my 20s I’ve unsuccessfully tried to evade memories, losses, and deaths by compartmentalizing and relegating my past to a space it wasn’t meant for. Despite all of this I realize that my story isn’t unique. There are so many families in America whose lives never bounced back after 2008. Families who lost everything and are still losing everything. All they have left are memories and relics of bygone eras at best. Macon is just my town and I’ve seen it transmute dramatically in conjunction with my own notions of family, home, and personal identity.