Main Street: Photography Pop Up, Buffalo Obscura’s fifth one-night only event was held at the former AM&A’s department store, 377 Main Street, on Friday, December 7, 2018, 6 to 11 pm. The show directed the lenses of photographers toward Main Street—the literal and the representative.
Artists:  Brendan Bannon, Joel Brenden, Linda Gellman, Chris Hawley, Molly Jarboe, Christina Laing, Amy Luraschi, Greg Meadows, Tom Schmitt, Ginny Rose Stewart, and David Torke and Chris Kameck.

“We’re going downtown!” says Christina Laing, a co-organizer. “No place so powerfully invokes Buffalo holiday memories like the AM&A’s department store. This place of memory will be the jumping off point for the exploratory work of the photographers.”
The AM&A’s department store had been located on Main Street in downtown Buffalo starting in 1867, moved to 377 Main Street in 1960, and closed in 1995. The department store reopened and closed in 1998, and has been vacant since. In 2015, a New York City-based development group purchased the building and began a gradual rehabilitation.

“This will the first time that the general public has been invited back in to the AM&A’s department store since its closure in 1998,” says Chris Hawley, a co-organizer. “The public will get a rare chance to see the progress that is being made, and reflect on what this landmark means to present day Buffalo.”

“The photographers are invited to explore what Main Street means,” says Molly Jarboe, co-organizer. “Main Street as a counterpoint to Wall Street? As a showcase for fashion and popular culture? Or as a place of memory in this holiday season? The photographers will no doubt surprise us.”

Buffalo Obscura’s pop ups are an opportunity to see photography in places not typically seen.

Special thanks to event hosts Loung Construction.