In the Summer of 1980, Lisa Barlow was following the curve of Connecticut’s Route 69 in a beat-up rental car, when she came across a giant cross looming above the highway. Barlow had heard about Holy Land U.S.A. but never encountered the painstaking replica in miniature of Jerusalem with illustrative scenes from the Bible, replete with precepts and biblical quotations engraved in cement. There was Pilate’s house, the Inn with a “No Vacancy” sign, a mummified lump spray painted white representing Lot’s wife turned to salt, and a repentant looking Lucifer locked in a small dog cage. Built 20 years earlier with concrete, plaster, wire and wood, the diorama had been sparingly repaired with modern materials such as plastic and aluminium siding. The Stairway to Heaven, cracked asphalt steps ascending the hill, had a cyclone fence along one side, and the Garden of Eden was completely obscured by thick vines under a tin sunshade. It was from there that Balow first saw the city of Waterbury spread beneath her, its church spires and factory smokestacks in odd juxtaposition with Holy Land’s little foot high buildings at her feet. “Before long, it was more than a fascination with Holy Land that kept luring me back to Waterbury. It was the people who captured my attention, my imagination and eventually, my love. This is the story of that year in pictures.” Lisa Barlow Barlow’s images of Waterbury and its uniquely American idiosyncrasies are enthused with a rare empathy combined with a visual complexity that continues to unfold with each viewing. “These images work on me in a way that photographs rarely do, in that they really seem to move, to speak, to breathe; there’s music in them, songs and stories that rise from them unbidden.” Brad Zeller