Faces of Asheville - A Photo Documentary Project
http://www.facesofasheville.com
Jen Bowen has been a part of the Asheville community since 1993 when she relocated here with her family from Colorado and Texas. After graduating from college she left Asheville to explore other parts of the world through the AmeriCorps program. It was only after departing Asheville that she realized what she had left behind. Thankfully she proved local son and author Thomas Wolfe wrong, and she was able to come home again.
The city of Asheville, nestled in it's stunning scenery of some of the world's oldest mountains, is nothing less than an amazing repertoire of diverse talent and intellectual awareness unlike any other in the world. Although the city definitely has a fair share of challenges as it struggles to grow and develop in a healthy and sustainable manner throughout the community, it is attracting wonderful people from all over the world. There is an essence within these mountains that acts as a magnet for talent, creativity, consciousness, and hope. Our cosmopolitan downtown mixed with rural Southern-Hospitality make for an enchanting tourist destination, but it is the good people who live and work here that make Asheville a beloved city.
Upon returning to Asheville in 2005, Jen made it her goal to document the people in her community. Originally starting as a MySpace photo-blog of street photography, Jen developed the idea of ‘Faces of Asheville’ for over 2 years before she was able to gain the supplies and skills needed to carry out her ultimate goal of a formal portrait photo-documentary.
In July 2007 Jen opened up her home to friends, neighbors, and strangers destined to become friends. The goal was to bring as many community members into her just sufficing home-studio and document their presence in the Asheville community through a portrait that exhibited each individual in an honest and provoking manner. Each participant was asked to bring an item with them, not necessarily tangible, that somehow encapsulated a portion of their personality or status in Asheville or the surrounding community.
Jen photographed 111 participants and was about to close her studio doors to start on the post-production processing, when her home was burglarized and the studio destroyed. The vandals escaped with her camera and the hard-drive that held all of the photos. All she was left with were 27 photos she had transferred onto another hard-drive for editing purposes. Almost resigned to give up on the project completely, she remembered what was the core of mission's purpose:
- to bring the community closer together
- to show ourselves as we wish to be seen
- to create and strengthen the bonds of friends and neighbors
- and to inspire everyone to celebrate their individuality within the Asheville community.
Jen's passion revived, she set forth to start over.
In a display of the true character Jen was attempting to document, the community came together and saved the Faces of Asheville Photo-Documentary Project. To read more about the amazing journey of the project see the Faces of Asheville Website.
