The Park

The Park takes viewers into Washington, D.C.’s Rock Creek Park to examine how the city’s residents are using this open space while the pandemic changes the shape of daily life. Photographed in the last weeks of summer, the large format images study a variety of experiences of the natural setting. The land that became Rock Creek Park 130 years ago has seen human habitation for at least 4,000 years; our use of the region today adds to a long human tradition of interacting with this piece of nature. What we need from the park during a pandemic, while not entirely different from other times, is intensified—the fresh air, open spaces, reflection and rejuvenation are all now vital to our existence. Each of the images, then, depict an act of survival.