Set against the backdrop of a post-industrial American town, the photographs move beyond documentary observation into a more intimate register, where landscape, bodies, adolescence and memory converge. Locals and college students, teenagers and longtime residents gather in the same water, creating a temporary social space in which differences of background momentarily recede.

The work is grounded in proximity and trust. Some of the people Stein photographs return to the creek over many years; others appear only once. The resulting images move between observation and collaboration, intimacy and play, tracing friendships, bodies and seasons as they change over time. Through this sustained act of return, Stein constructs a portrait not only of a particular community, but of summer, growing up, belonging and the passage of time.

The exhibition coincides with the Paris launch of Stein’s monograph Down by the Hudson, published by Palo Gallery Press, with essays by Amitava Kumar, Anita N. Bateman and Matt Carey-Williams, and a conversation with Daniel Wolff.

On Sunday 15 November, Stein will be joined by Emilia Mickevicius, Norton Family Assistant Curator at the Center for Creative Photography, for a conversation about the project and its development over the past thirteen years.

Following the exhibition, all fourteen works presented in Paris will enter the Sixteen Photography Collection, furthering its commitment to building a long-term collection dedicated to contemporary photography, cultural memory and dialogue across generations.

Works from Down by the Hudson are held in the collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center and the New York State Museum.