A Makeshift Home...

An Introduction:

I find myself traveling back to this forgotten "home", and it's not how I remember it. My new pair of eyes see the familiar and the unfamiliar. Being from Swea City has gained me access to the things that photographers normally wouldn't have. The closed Historical Society, the City Hall that's going to be torn down, and the old bus barn that's been vacant and deteriorating for years.

I am a part of, yet completely separate from, this town.

This town is safe... my safe place has become run-down without me realizing it. The emptiness shown within these pictures isn't seen by the people who live here. The history is forgotten - Must we tear down the past to move forward?

During this project, I met my grandfather for the first time. He is going deaf. Photographs lined the walls of his garage. I wanted to make images of them so badly - but i was frozen, stuck, watching his every movement, noticing every detail. The confused, lost look he gave me when I tried to talk to him, the way his eyes still looked bright, the way he smiled slightly and chuckled to himself - all in his ever-silent world.

My grandfather fell down the stairs when my dad was young - he sort of got amnesia... but this book is not about him. In my way, I have amnesia about Swea City. I found myself trying to find everything that I have missed in the past and the things that are separate in the present.

This is not a documentary about a small town in Iowa. It is a torn page in a forgotten scrapbook.















































-Liz Hardt-

A Makeshift Home

By Liz Hardt

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