Kathryn Harrison

Kathryn Harrison (b. 1988) earned a BFA in Photography from Ringling College of Art & Design in Sarasota, Florida and a certificate from the International Center of Photography in New York during her junior year. Kathryn received the Rita Hillman Award for Excellency from ICP in 2014. The majority of Kathryn’s work is inspired by and focuses on the landscape, memory and nostalgia, familial roles, and relationships between people. Today we share her new and ongoing series Side of the South.

Side of the South

Born and raised in the American South, I decided to explore the culture that I ignored as a child. In Florida the ongoing joke is you must go north in order to get to the South. Now, it’s pretty much true. Due to the overwhelming number of tourist attractions and high-rises full of part-time residents, only about 1 in 3 Floridians were born in the State, which is the second-lowest ratio in the US. According to the US Census Bureau, South Florida continues to rank among the top five metropolitan areas in the United States for having the widest disparity between rich and poor. South Florida may be booming with record-breaking real estate development and sales, but the middle and lower classes struggle to find a place to settle and call home. Despite the hardships I endured growing up in South Florida, never living in a house for more than a couple of years, I learned that home is a sense of belonging with the understanding of things as they are. This work led me to many unexpected but familiar places, reconnected me with long-lost faces and propelled me to discover moments where I truly felt at peace in a place I have always felt so conflicted about.

To View more of Kathryn’s work please visit her website.