Growing up cruising the rivers of the South Carolina coast in a johnboat, I was essentially oblivious to the staggering beauty of this place. After two years of flying repeatedly over these inaccessible places where I wandered as a boy, words seem trite when used to describe the singularity of this region.
But nothing stays the same. Things evolve with God’s will, and are manipulated by the hand of man. The winding marsh-lined creeks where I learned to slalom are now crowded by houses with docks. The rivers where I cast my net now post warning signs about the mercury content of the fish. A giant condominium is falling into the ocean on the end of the Isle of Palms, coastal forests are being cleared for tract houses, and the traffic everywhere is a mess.
Meanwhile, as we crowd ever closer to the shore, demanding federally funded flood insurance to protect our investments, the ocean is rising to take them away. The city of Charleston is predicted to have 30 days per year of flooding by 2020. And all the while 48 people per day move into the region, congesting new roads and bridges as fast as they can be built, and placing a tremendous burden on infrastructure.
Is this just the nature of progress, that all good things must be cut down or paved? Or are there effective limits to growth that will preserve this region into the future?
J. Henry Fair
Eyes On the Edge: J Henry Fair Photographs the Carolina Coast
Through 23 October 2016
At the Columbia Museum of Art
1515 Main St
Columbia, SC 29201
USA
https://www.columbiamuseum.org/
