Georgia on my mind

Jörg Rubbert

In his exhibition Georgia on My Mind, Jörg Rubbert shows the southern state from an unusual perspective. Far away from the boom town of Atlanta, in central and southern Georgia, people live according to another, slower rhythm. Georgia has suffered in particular from the steady decline of the cotton industry. The economic crisis, which is still being felt today, has also had a strong impact on the predominantly rural region. Rubbert’s images present the current economic situation in an unfiltered manner: run-down shopping arcades in Main Street, businesses standing empty, petrol stations converted into rag shops, and shut-down cotton mills. People play a rather insignificant role: in this series, the locations and the traces left by people’s lives bear witness. People are perceptible in the background but seem lost in the settings depicted, so that the images communicate a certain melancholy and hopelessness. The deliberately chosen medium of colour photography gives rise to an almost surreal contrast between the sunny South and the region’s decline. The images were created between 2007 and 2012 and reflect the time before and after the financial crisis.