Matthew López-Jensen: The Work and the Water

For the Erie Canal’s 200th anniversary, López-Jensen’s series centers the unseen labor that keeps the waterway operational

The debut photobook The Work and the Water: Labor and Landscapes along the Erie Canal by Matthew López-Jensen (born 1980) is a work of environmental social practice centering the unseen labor required to keep the Erie Canal, a 524-mile inland waterway in upstate New York, operational. Over 40 photographs are accompanied by commentary from the more than 400 employees who work on the canal year-round, often out of view and in hazardous conditions. As the first artist-in-residence with the canal in its 200-year history, López-Jensen visited every lock in the system from Buffalo to Albany, from Whitehall to Seneca Falls. The archive of images he created helps communicate the potentials of the canal as a site for environmental restoration while also conveying the scale of this colossal piece of infrastructure that transformed the region in ways that are still felt today.