Peter Feldstein & Stephen G Bloom's Oxford project

Peter moved to the tiny town of Oxford, (6-700 people) Iowa, 32 years ago to teach photography at the State university. In 1984 he set up his camera & took photographs of many of the town's natives. In 2005 he did the same thing. The resulting project is garnering increasing amounts of attention with articles in the NYTimes, television coverage & now, Peter informs me: a book deal. Why is this project so universally interesting? Well, I think the answer is obvious, it is a symbol of our own lives encapsulated. It brings to mind the last line of that strange film: 'Confessions of a Dangerous Mind' purportedly the true life of Chuck Barris the 1970's game show host who invented the 'Gong Show' & 'Dating Game'. In the book the film was based on Mr Barris claimed his television persona was really just a cover for his real job as CIA assasin. In the last line of the film Mr Barris' character says in a voice over (paraphrasing from memory): Hey! I have a new idea for a television show: we get three old men on stage & give each of them a loaded .38. We then talk of the dreams & aspirations of their respective youths. The last one who alive wins a refrigerator! The idea that most people's dashed dreams of glory would cause them to commit sucide upon looking back, holds enough truth in it to make it morbidly funny. The Oxford project offers something of the opposite- people whose dreams smalness are matched only by the tininess of satisfaction or disappointment. A fascinating look at the fellow humans whom I (as socially marginalised artist) at least, never get an opportunity to meet.