In 2003 Travis Roozée took this series of photographs of the abandoned town of Centralia, Pennsylvania. This project is part of Roozée’s ongoing exploration of the overlap of contradictory ecologies, places where the resilience of nature perseveres despite human intervention. Centralia was an active mining town from the mid-1850’s to 1962 when a coal vein caught on fire from garbage burning in a near-by dump. The underground fire continues today with no means to extinguish it. While people continued to live in the vicinity, their plight drew national attention in 1981 when a 12 year old boy fell into a 150’ deep sinkhole that suddenly opened up below his feet. This prompted congress to allocate funds to relocate residents. Today a small number of people remain amidst the wasteland. Seen here is a burning section of old Route 61, the road was relocated in 1993 to circumvent the town. The physical landscape has also been altered, as seen here in scorched rocks and discolored moss and lichen. The film The Town that Was, which documents Centralia, by Chris Perkel and Georgie Roland will be shown as part of our Environmental Film Screening on April 5 and 6.

Travis Roozée’s Portrait of Jamaica Bay was exhibited at the Museum of the City of New York, New York, NY in 2007. For this project he spent a year exploring complex balance between the natural and urban environments of Broad Channel and Jamaica Bay. It was supported through a fellowship with the Design Trust for Public Space. Rooftop Brooklyn, an homage to urban pigeon keeping documenting pigeon keepers in Bushwick, Brooklyn was exhibited at The Arsenal Gallery, New York, NY in 2005. Over the past year he has visited car shops in Willets Point, an area to the north of Flushing Meadows Corona Park that are slated for demolition to make way for the new Mets stadium complex. His photographs have been published in the Entertainment Weekly, New York Times, Oprah Magazine, Swindle, and Time Out New York. He earned his BA in photography from Columbia College, Chicago, IL. For more information visit www.travisroozee.com.