Alley Study 39 with Swedish Water Tank Drawing

b. 1961 Joliet USA Lives Chicago William Dolan explores the relationship of society to the urban realm through an interpretation of the built environment. Focusing on ignored, outdated and well-worn bits of the city; the infrastructure that is left behind, as humans reshape their surroundings to support an increasingly homogeneous existence. These often-overlooked places are reflective of those that create and use them. Some of it will survive as an indication of what happened around the turn of the 21st. Century. Much of it will disappear. It is this simultaneous ambivalence and reverence that people have toward their habitat that Dolan expresses through his work. The American city is ever-changing. As cultures continue to be economically and socially mobile, they are also physically on the move; one group leaves, another takes it's place. Possibly, the constantly changing city is the most visible evidence of a society's evolution.