Photography.
Brian Ulrich is also showing work at Roozenbottel.
Tuchthuisstraat 8, Haarlem.
http://www.roozenbottel.nl

In 2001 citizens were encouraged to take to the malls to boost the U.S. economy through shopping, thereby equating consumerism with patriotism. The Copia project, a direct response to that advice, is a long-term photographic examination of the excesses of consumer-dominated culture in which we live. Copia explores not only the everyday activities of shopping, but the economic, cultural, social, and political implications of commercialism and the roles we play in self-destruction, over-consumption, and as targets of marketing and advertising.  By scrutinizing these rituals, I hope that viewers will evaluate the increasing complexities of the modern world and their own role within it.
Since we ultimately sees ourselves in these images, I hope to elicit compassion and empathy for those depicted by creating formal images that are elegant and beautiful. Shooting candidly with a medium-format film camera outfitted with a waist-level viewfinder and available light, I can capture lost excitement and overwhelmed, subsumed moments while being unnoticed myself. The large-scale photographs allow the viewer to stop and notice with a distanced perspective familiar places and things.

Prints are lightjet c-prints, 50x60 cm.