The Geography of Disappearing: Meatyard, Butchertown, and Perspective in Naomi Iizuka’s At the Vanishing Point

Abstract

Naomi Iizuka’s At the Vanishing Point weaves together physical and metaphysical landscapes to evince an understanding of Butchertown, a historic post-industrial neighborhood in Louisville, Kentucky, through the perspective of the influential experimental photographer Ralph Eugene Meatyard. In the article, I argue that Iizuka provides a nuanced way to interact with the industrial legacies of developed nations. Rather than obfuscating the past and the future, in At the Vanishing Point, Iizuka dramatizes a community’s beginning and possible end through space, time and interpersonal relationships. Utilizing a multivalent methodology, I explore this play by reading Meatyard’s biography and works, the geohistory of Butchertown, and theories of perspective against the play to illustrate how Iizuka brings her audience to inhabit a neighborhood while mediating on the moments before the death of its inhabitants and the possible demise of the geography as well.