Untitled (Purseglove Coal Mining Company houses, Osage, Scott's Run, West Virginia) Oct-35

Curator: Looking at this image, I'm struck by its starkness. It's a photograph, attributed to Ben Shahn, depicting the Purseglove Coal Mining Company houses in Osage. What do you see when you first look at it? Editor: A kind of haunting stillness, almost like a memory fading at the edges. The architecture suggests a social hierarchy, but the inverted tones give it an almost surreal quality. Curator: Absolutely. The composition emphasizes the uniformity and the sheer number of houses, a visual representation of the coal mining community. The houses are a symbol of company control. Editor: Yes, and it’s fascinating how Shahn uses light and shadow— or, rather, the inversion of them here—to underscore that control and the workers' dependence on it. The inverted image makes it look like a ghost town. Curator: It definitely emphasizes a feeling of displacement, I wonder about the stories held within these now empty houses, about the lives lived and sacrificed for coal. Editor: Exactly, and perhaps the darkness here suggests the deeper, almost subterranean cost of industry on communities like Osage. It is a dark memento. Curator: A somber reflection on labor, community, and the shadows of progress, captured in miniature. Editor: A powerful little window into a world both familiar and disturbingly distant.