I posted Linda Kuo’s wonderful body of work, Displaced, a few months ago, and as I said I would, today I am featuring images from her stunning series, Hit and Run. As you might imagine, the style of photos of roadkill can range from one end of the spectrum to the other. Tracking roadkill tags on Tumblr much more often than not yields shocking, gory, and either overly dramatic or uncomfortably stark pictures. From my experience, it can be quite difficult to make pictures of vehicle-killed animals in a way that is sensitive, interesting, and meaningful. I think Linda Kuo’s pictures embody these qualities beautifully.
From the artist’s statement: I grew up in Illinois, where the roads run long, flat and straight across a vast plain of open farmland. In this setting, prairie wildlife and cars can easily avoid one another. However, when I moved to Westchester, just north of New York City, I was confronted with a different reality.
As road density increases, wildlife habitats are destroyed and fragmented into smaller, more isolated plots. Animals are unable to meet their biological needs, and as a result, a variety of species are now threatened with extinction.
The pictures in this series document the fallen creatures along the wooded parkways of Westchester County.
From “Hit and Run”
Visit artist's site: kuophoto.com
Posted October 17th, 2013
