Rotan Switch - Hardcover

by Lisa McCord (Author), Lisa McCord (Photographer), Alexa Dilworth (Text by (Art/Photo Books))

A personal view and critical reflection on cotton growing in US history

Rotan Switch is the first monograph by Lisa McCord, documenting life on her grandparents' cotton farm in the Arkansas Delta community of Rotan. It takes its name from the community's central landmark--the railroad switch where farmers loaded their cotton bales onto trains headed out of the Delta. Although it hasn't been used in years, it remains a potent symbol of the complex intersections of industry and agriculture, of race and injustice. Collected over the last forty-four years, these images and stories are a reflection on the people and places that have taught McCord the meaning of the word home. It is also a self-exploration into her inherently complicated role in this community as both the photographer and the granddaughter of the farm owner.

This publication is a long-term project, constructed from McCord's analog photographs, family snapshots and ephemera. Including, monochrome photographs, color polaroids, and recipes.

Author Biography

Lisa McCord is a fine art and documentary photographer from the Arkansas Delta, who lives and works in Los Angeles and Arkansas. Focusing on her experiences on her family's cotton farm, her creative practice explores concepts of storytelling, memory, and the passage of time.

McCord received her BFA from San Francisco Art Institute and earned an MFA from California Institute of the Arts. She also attended New York University, Le Contrejour, Paris, and The Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, NY. She taught photography at several high schools and universities in the LA area including Pepperdine University. She has exhibited her work in galleries and museums internationally, including SoHo Photo Gallery and Carrie Able Gallery in New York; Center for Fine Art Photography in Fort Collins; Bruce Lurie Gallery, Building Bridges Art Exchange, Classic Photographs Los Angeles, and the Annenberg Space for Photography Museum in Los Angeles; FotoFever in Paris, the Museum of Nature of Cantabria in Spain, MIA Photo Fair in Milan. McCord's work has been shown in solo exhibitions at Fabrik Projects, Gallery 825, the Memphis Cotton Museum, Slow Exposures, and Leica Gallery LA in 2023.Her work has been featured in numerous publications including AAP Magazine, Black & White Photography (UK edition), Float Magazine, and Feature Shoot. She was a Critical Mass Finalist in 2015, 2016, and 2021. McCord's work is in the permanent collections of the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts and the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art.Lisa McCord is represented by Leica Gallery Los Angeles.