Greta Pratt - EXPOSURE INTERNATIONAL OPEN CALL

Tidewater is a series is about living with rising seawater in the low-lying coastal region of Eastern Virginia known as Tidewater. Aptly named due to the convergence of five rivers, the Atlantic Ocean and the Chesapeake Bay, which sprout copious finger-like tendrils of water that rise and fall with the tide. 

Flooding is common in Tidewater. It is not unusual to see giant rulers painted along roadways to let drivers know when to turn back. House raising is increasingly common. Sometimes whole blocks are raised. According to Sea Level Rise.org, “The sea level around Sewells Point, Virginia, has risen by 14 inches since 1950. Its speed of rise has accelerated over the last ten years, and it’s now rising by one inch every 4 years.”

Some refer to Tidewater as the birthplace of America, for in 1607, British colonists sailed up the James River to occupy Powhatan land and establish the first permanent British colony. A few years later, in 1619, the White Lion, a ship carrying captured Africans, sailed in and sold its occupants as slaves to serve the colonists. Numerous Revolutionary and Civil War graveyards throughout the region attest to the skirmishes fought on land and sea.

Slowly and silently, the water comes ever closer. Attempts to keep it away can be described as a seemingly endless and futile Sisyphean task—you keep doing it, but it never gets done.

BIOGRAPHY

Greta Pratt is a photographer and author whose work explores American myth, place, and identity. Pratt is the author of four books, In Search of the Corn Queen (Smithsonian National Museum of American Art), 1995), Using History (Steidl 2005), The Wavers (Blue Sky Books, 2014), and Nineteen Lincolns (Peanut Press, 2020). Her work has been exhibited internationally and nationally at Smithsonian American Art Museum, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, The Park Avenue Armory, Beirut Art Center, Museum of Contemporary Photography, and the Mattress Factory Museum, among others. Pratt's work is the collections of Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Museum of Contemporary Photography, Museum of Fine Art, Houston, The Chrysler Museum, and Minneapolis Institute of Art, among others. Pratt was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and is the recipient of a New Jersey State Artist Fellowship. Her photographs have been featured in Art in America, The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, and Harpers, along with numerous books and catalogs.