Discarded documents

By Kurt Gohde and Kremena Todorova

Discarded began in the late fall of 2009, a season when discarded furniture abounded on curbs throughout Lexington.  Each of us spotted a piece we wanted to photograph: a green plaid sofa precariously poised on a boxy television set, a golden brocaded chair oddly out of place in front of a house known to neighbors as “the hooligans’ house.”  Each of us wondered about the stories connected to these pieces, about the people who had until just recently sat, lounged, or curled up on them.  We knew that we could collect some of these stories by asking the owners or their neighbors to sit on the cast-away furniture.

We decided to create portraits of these people, our neighbors, on the well-worn sofas and chairs.  We believed that by doing so we would capture a single moment in the furniture’s life.

We took our first photograph on January 8, 2010.  Because the temperature had finally climbed above 20 degrees and because the sun was shining, Billy agreed to sit on the sofa he and his girlfriend had dragged out into the snow in anticipation of their new living-room set.  Prior to finding Billy and his couch, we had been repeatedly turned away by a houseful of college students who said 15 degrees was too cold to sit on the sofa they had put on the curb.

We began with the intention of capturing the stories that lived within the old pieces of furniture, but we soon realized that our images amounted to something more: a collective portrait of a year in the life of our city.  This portrait includes urban hipsters, mechanics, mothers with infants, suburban dwellers, traditionally-defined nuclear families, college students, cousins, brothers, and friends.  It includes dogs, tattoos, Mardi Gras beads, empty beer cans, old teddy bears, and all the objects that fill our lives.  It includes our neighbors, even those frequently hidden from view by entire neighborhoods labeled as “hooligan.”

We took our last picture on January 20, 2011: another wintery day, 365 days after photographing Billy in the snow.

A small collection of images is currently on exhibit at the Good Foods Co-op on Southland Drive (through February 28). All the images, along with poetry and music inspired by the discarded pieces in them, will soon be on display at Land of Tomorrow (L.O.T.) Gallery, located at 527 E. Third Street (just past the intersection of Race and Third Streets). Please join us for the opening reception on Friday, February 18 at 7 P.M.

Over the next few months, North of Center will feature some of the images and stories captured by Kurt and Kremena.