A Natural Order, Lucas Foglia

JournalArt & Culture

A Natural Order, Lucas Foglia

A touching document of life off the grid...

Photographer Lucas Foglia had an unconventional upbringing. While the world was throwing up malls, sending up defence satellites and lapping up consumer technology in the 80s, his home was a Long Island farm, just 30 miles from the Gordon Geckos of Wall Street, where his parents had put down roots as followers of the back-to-the-land movement, which advocated self-sufficiency in all things.

Today, when there is a growing sense that the world is a whisper away from something truly catastrophic, where stockpiling doomsday preppers seem less crackpot than they once did – what a perfect time for Foglia to jump in a camper van to rediscover the lost communities that fell of the grid in America’s south-eastern states.

His exhibition and book of images, A Natural Order, captures such lifestyles, not as an idyll, but as a reality – this American dream has dirt under its fingernails, and Foglia doesn’t shy away from it. The beauty of nature is ever present, but so are the hardships that such a lifestyle presents, whether it be by choice of religion, ecological beliefs, or just a desire to opt out of capitalism.

You can see the results for yourself at Foglia’s first UK exhibition at Michael Hoppen Contemporary, London, from 9th November to 1st December.

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