Virginie Kippelen is a French-American photographer who moved from France to Atlanta in 1991. This October, as part of the
Atlanta Celebrates Photography festival, her exhibition
“Lost in Sight” is on display for the first time.
From now through October 31st, visit Virginie Kippelen’s immersive exhibition of pictures of the Flint River headwaters in an industrial container turned art space next to Hapeville’s City Hall.
On any given day, some 260,000 passengers fly in and out of Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta. Beneath the tarmac, unknown to most people, flows the headwaters of one of the most scenic rivers in the southeastern United States, the Flint. Back in the 1970s, the construction of the airport displaced residents and fractured the surrounding neighborhoods. It also buried the river in pipes and culverts, making it invisible to most. As the airport grew, the Flint river’s headwaters disappeared from the map and from the community’s shared experience. This long-term documentary work intends to restore a visual identity to a river’s origin that has been lost in sight.
In Virginie’s own words, “I wanted to offer an immersive experience of the elusive Flint’s headwaters, with visuals and sound. I covered the floor with an image of a river’s bed to give people the feeling that they are walking in water. It is because people have lost the sight and the experience of the river at its source that they have forgotten about it.”
The exhibition is available for viewing by appointment only. Email
[email protected] to schedule a viewing. There is no charge for visiting the exhibition. It is located on the pedestrian alley adjacent to the Hapeville City Hall at 3468 North Fulton Avenue.