The Griffin Museum of Photography opens its doors to a profound exploration of the American South with the exhibition Lisa McCord: Rotan Switch. Running through September 6, 2026, the showcase features the evocative work of the 31st Juried Members Exhibition prize winner. McCord, a documentary photographer with deep roots in the Arkansas Delta, presents a visual narrative that spans over four decades of life on her family’s cotton farm. The title refers to the defunct railroad switch in Rotan, Arkansas, once a vital hub for transporting cotton bales, now serving as a silent witness to the region’s shifting industrial and social landscapes.
Through a collection of photographs taken between 1978 and 2021, Lisa McCord documents five generations of a community intertwined with the land. Her lens captures the daily rhythms of the Delta, from the labor-intensive demands of agriculture to the intimate domesticity of rural life. However, the exhibition goes beyond mere documentation. McCord engages in a self-reflective critique of her own position as a white photographer and the granddaughter of a landowner. She acknowledges that her ability to document these spaces is a manifestation of privilege, and her images intentionally grapple with the enduring socioeconomic inequities and the complex history of racism inherent in the rural South.
Educated at the San Francisco Art Institute and CalArts, McCord brings a sophisticated formal sensibility to her documentary practice. Her work, which has been featured in international venues like the Leica Gallery and the Annenberg Space for Photography, often centers on themes of memory and the passage of time. The images in Rotan Switch, many of which appeared in her 2024 monograph published by Kehrer Verlag, function as both a personal memoir and a broader sociological record. By focusing on the Arkansas Delta, McCord transforms a specific geography into a universal exploration of what it means to call a flawed and complicated place home.
Image: © Lisa McCord



