Scavenger: Adventures in Treasure Hunting

Description

“There comes a time in every rightly constructed boy’s life when he has a raging desire to go somewhere and dig for hidden treasure.”
-Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Riley grew up in rural eastern Washington.  As a child he read Mark Twain’s stories of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn and decided he wanted to be like those mythical boys.  He wanted a life full of treasure and adventure.  In the series Scavenger: Adventures in Treasure Hunting, photographer Jenny Riffle follows Riley out on his hunts and photographs the objects he collects.  Riffle explores the line between documentary and fantasy.  She portrays Riley as an adventurous character driven by the thrill of the hunt and the possibility of what he will discover.

At home Riley arranges and displays all of his treasure.  Accompanying 100 copies of the book Scavenger are a set of 15 stereograph cards and a portable viewer to allow the reader to experience Riley’s displays in 3D.  Looking into the stereoscope, the reader is invited into Riley’s world of found treasures.

Jenny Riffle was born in Washington State in 1979.  She received her MFA in Photo, Video and Related Media from the School of Visual Arts in 2011 and her BA in photography from Bard College in 2001.  In 2014 Riffle was chosen as one of PDN’s 30 New and Emerging Photographers to Watch, she received the Aaron Siskind Individual Photographer’s Fellowship Grant in 2013 and the Juror’s Award at Newspace Center for Photography’s 2012 Juried Show for her project Scavenger: Adventures in Treasure Hunting.  Riffle lives in Seattle where she teaches at the Photo Center Northwest.