The Mississippi Delta: New Delta Rising, Magdalena Solé

Stuff Crush • Publications

Down South But Not Out

Hard times and warm hearts in the Mississippi Delta...

Rob Wilkes •

The people and places of the Mississippi Delta so completely captured the heart and imagination of documentary photographer Magdalena Solé on her first visit in 2009 that she felt compelled to revisit the region which she says has never left her. She’s quite a fan of the place.

However, this is not Paul Simon’s romanticised Mississippi Delta, shining like a national guitar, but a rather more careworn one in a second hand shop which still has a great warm tone when you give it a go. If The Mississippi Delta – New Delta Rising had a soundtrack, it would be the Blues, moaning of life’s hardships but never succumbing to them. An atmosphere of poverty pervades Solé’s images, but the humanity of her subjects is something that does shine like that famous guitar. Her work forms part of the spring exhibition at the Cassidy Bayou Gallery, Mississippi, and you can buy her book New Delta Rising through University Press of Mississippi.

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All images © Magdalena Solé, 2012