Rebecca
Drolen

TRANSPLANTS

As contemporary populations become increasingly migratory, influences from throughout the country and world appear to be absorbed within urban spaces of the South, adjusting our expectations of culture, heritage and commerce. Those who transition to the new space may both affect and be affected by their chosen landscape. The result challenges our assumptions of regional identity and points to the modern American cityscape as a multi-dimensional space fraught with the challenges of preserving heritage while embracing the benefits of broadened perspectives.
Transplants explores questions of how regional culture, specifically that which constructs a “Southern identity,” is adjusted or reassembled by the influence of outsiders. The “outsiders” depicted in the work are people who have moved to a large, Southern city from elsewhere. The project serves as a demographic study describing the appearance of these people within the local landscape.