{"product_id":"mark-cohen-cotton","title":"Mark Cohen: Cotton","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe first picture, gas station through the car window, starts the trip off.\u003cbr\u003eI drove eight days, in July,1991, from Atlanta, Georgia to Memphis, Tennessee along small roads, and stopped along the way. When I got to the cities, like Jackson or Birmingham, or Montgomery, I stopped at parking meters and walked around blocks.\u003cbr\u003eMy intention was not to make a book---only pictures.\u003cbr\u003eAfter thirty years, and the exposure of extreme political incompetence with the recent past governments, I looked at this work again and thought it might be an accidental view of the South in three parts:\u003cbr\u003eBlack people, white people, and the infrastructure at the time. Cotton was,\u003cbr\u003ean early, fundamental, economic driver, with profit enhanced and insured by slaves.\u003cbr\u003eCOTTON is a picture book, but with a political and social backstory.\u003cbr\u003eI stopped at a small black church and used two pictures to emphasize the hold of religion and strong women.\u003cbr\u003eInstead of square miles of cotton fields I saw its trace in small cardboard boxes.\u003cbr\u003eThe book’s last picture of the five boys on the bench seems emblematic of the region’s resulting,\u003cbr\u003eand often segregated leisure. The camera made an unconscious litmus test with black and white film exposed to the acid nature of racism.\u003cbr\u003eI want to thank Yasunori Hoki-san and Koichi Hara-san, Hichiro-san who made this book possible.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"SUPER LABO","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50555654471737,"sku":"210000002989","price":50.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0782\/0872\/9145\/files\/4m5nf3qbe-p8atqu.jpg?v=1790279686","url":"https:\/\/shop.icp.org\/products\/mark-cohen-cotton","provider":"International Center of Photography","version":"1.0","type":"link"}