Niagara Falling

Niagara Falls is one of the world’s most beautiful natural phenomena, but it enters this millennium burdened with human intervention gone astray. Niagara Falling is a beautiful and poignant encounter with the falls. It celebrates the natural wonder, contrasts it with the nearby city of Niagara Falls, NY, and considers the future of both.

David Hodge grew up in the bustling city of Niagara Falls. After a long absence, he returned in 2008 and was deeply moved by the changes he saw. Since the Love Canal disaster in the late 1970s, the city had suffered a long and seemingly irreversible decline. He and his wife and artistic partner, Hi-Jin, felt the story of city had been neglected, and began a video installation project and photo essay to record their feelings about the current state of the city.

The book is an attempt to bring the original “Niagara Falling”video project to a larger audience. Its sources include photographs from the Hodges’ 2008 visit, where they were given broad access—including a helicopter overflight—to the surrounding area. It also features images of Love Canal that David shot in the late 1970s and archival images from the New York Power Authority, taken in the late 1950s during the construction of the largest hydro- electric facility the world had seen at that time.

This book contains nine artistic videos from the Niagara Falling installation.