(DC) (Lost Origins Gallery) Explore this outdoor exhibit of large format photography in an arts alley in Mt. Pleasant. During COVID Rock Creek Park was a popular sanctuary for DC residents including photographer T.J. Kirkpatrick, who could walk into the park from his home in Mt. Pleasant. After living in the District for ten years, this was the first time he had sought such solace in this green space or spent so much time photographing it. He could linger, now that there was nowhere else to be.

His camera of choice—an old, accordion-like large format film camera perched on a heavy tripod—was intentionally slow and gave an excuse to spend time in conversation with strangers. T.J. hauled this kit all across the park’s varied terrain and found that the drumbeat of loss and instability of pandemic life fell away on these days in the park. T.J.’s project considers the park space as a component of the nation’s civic infrastructure—those gathering places that simultaneously belong to none and all of us.