Photographer Brian Ulrich has worked for a number of years on a project titled Copia, which explores not only the everyday activities of shopping, but the wider economic, cultural, social, and political implications of commercialism. Ulrich’s first monograph, Copia, was published in 2006 by Aperture.
What is the relationship between photography and consumer culture? This was an important question I wanted to explore with Ulrich, considering his examination of “the peculiarities and complexities of the consumer-dominated culture in which we live.” I also wanted to explore the twists and turns of Ulrich’s (in the words of Robert Frost) road “less traveled by.” This is the road that took him from a childhood exploration of a Long Island mall through college in Akron, Ohio, with its downtown of “giant, empty buildings,” through rebellions and epiphanies in college and graduate school, and into the transformative experience of 9/11. As we talked, I came to appreciate how Ulrich’s quirky personal route gave him insight into the road down which our whole culture travels, namely the broad highway of overconsumption.
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