Emily Hobgood Thomas
Transient Places, Future Nostalgia explores North Carolina coastal towns impacted by tourism. More specifically, the impact tourists have on place when they decide not to return.
Hi! Can you tell us who you are?
EHT: Hi there! My name is Emily Hobgood Thomas. I'm an artist living and working in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
You work with place and time focusing on abandoned tourism. What I find most fascinating in your photographs is the attention to texture, more specifically texture that is shattered.
EHT: To me, photography is a lot about being in the right place at the right time. That sounds a bit facetious, but to me, photography deals with light and time. For some of my locations, if not all of them, I've scouted them before even going to shoot. I think the shattered texture goes hand and hand with what I do with these photos during the editing process. Not only am I taking photographs often with the conditions I've idealized for them, I'm usually shattering them in the editing process by taking them apart and putting a new whole together. These effects parallel each other in a fascinating way that further drives the issues that surround the work-the disintegration of place over time.
Both your collages and your photographs are devoid of humans but focus entirely on structures built by humans or places strewn with the remnants of human life. What moves you towards the object and away from the body?
EHT: This actually goes back to one of the most important lessons I think I ever had. I was in a Painting class with Jen Meanley at UNC Greensboro and I was making this really awful painting that sparked the process for where I am now. As I was explaining what it was about to my professor, she responded with something to the effect of "Why do you need a figure to tell this story?". Something in me clicked at that point and I realized that even though I was dealing with the effects of humans/being human, I did not need a human to show the narrative. Ever since, my work has been devoid of humans even though the human presence can be felt in these dilapidated structures and forgotten objects. It's the absence of the human presence that speaks to the urgency of these issues for me and my agency as an artist.
You wrote in your artist statement on your website, “When I make photocollages, I allow damage visible in the photographic image to be revealed within the confines of the collage. When placed on top of each other, the pieces I use create a hierarchy of layers. During the digital editing process, additions are allowed subtlety, thus reviving the landscape and revealing a responsibility or possibility for the place that is ahead of its time.” This is compelling. In the act of deconstructing an image only to then reconstruct an image you say it gives the piece “a possibility for the place that is ahead of its time”. This relationship with the image, a hopeful looking forward, is a contrast to your photographs where you often point to what was, what is left, or what ceases to exist.
EHT: I'd like to think in my investigation, I'm hopeful for a brighter future than the present I'm revealing. The title of the body of work in full is actually Transient Places, Future Nostalgia and not just Transient Places, which is often what I end up shortening it as. The quote you mention speaks largely to the duality of my practice-physical and digital work. The tiny polaroid collages are visceral in the cutting process-I find cutting an image to be a very violent action. The digital college process does not really cut into anything physical, therefore becoming a more delicate process that feels like I'm healing rather than showing destruction.
Going back to my project title, the term "Future Nostalgia" really speaks to this hopefulness that I have for these tourism based communities. I know that especially with the COVID-19 pandemic, my home's socioeconomic status has really taken a hit. I have this hope that the landscapes can be revived in some capacity for a brighter future. In remaking a landscape, I have to wonder if showing the damage, the abandonment, the emptiness could convince us to reconsider our responsibilities to the places in which we become tourists.
What have you been listening to, reading, or watching lately that contributes to your work?
EHT: Recently, I've really enjoyed the Artist/Mother Podcast, even though as a woman with no kids, I'm not the target audience. I find the content thoroughly relatable though in my journey as a young woman and an artist. I also love reading anything by Lucy Lippard, she's my favorite author when it comes to the art I make. Right now, I'm about to reread "UNDERMINING" since it's been about three years since I last read it and I find new gems each time I come back to it with fresh eyes.
Recipe of the Week:
Emily Hobgood Thomas Family Rum Cake Recipe
a) 1 yellow butter cake mix
b) 1 box of vanilla instant pudding in a 3oz box
c) 1/2 cup of vegetable oil
d) 1/2 cup of water
e) 1/2 cup of white rum.
Take all of those ingredients and mix them on a high setting for 2 minutes.
Once mixed, you will preheat the oven to 350 degrees and spray a bundt cake pan with cooking oil. After, you will add 1/2 cup of chopped pecans in the bottom of the pan. Then you will pour the batter in and bake it for about one hour.
Before the cake is done, take:
a) 1/4 cup of rum
b) one stick of butter
c) 1/4 cup of water
d) 1 cup of sugar
Heat the mixture until melted/mixed and pour over the cake after it has been taken out of the oven (keep it in the cake pan during the process so that the mixture cools in the cake).
Let mixture soak in the cake for at least thirty minutes before turning the cake out of the pan and serving.