Baby Please Don’t Go

A unique photo documentary of the Blues Trail from Memphis, Tennessee to New Orleans, Louisiana. These images were taken in 2017 in spirit of celebrating the African American blues music by visually capturing individuals and localities. The images reflect the sweet-bitter reality of the Mississippi Delta region today, its stark scenes of the agrarian past, and a history of racial violence, poverty and economic decline. The popular blues song Baby Please Don’t serves as the thematic for the exhibition. Many have performed it, including Mississippi bluesman Big Joe Williams:

Now, baby please don’t go

Oh baby, please don’t go, umm
Now, baby please don’t go
Back to New Orleans

You know I love you so

These photos are the artist’s visual interpretation of this song. Bibiana Huang Matheis composed a special heart symbol into each image. There is a heart in every photo, representing love. In part, this demonstrates the artist’s love for blues music, juxtaposing the symbol for love against the local milieus.

The artist explained, “Before my trip to this region, I had no preconceived notions of what I wanted to capture in my images. I had never been there. I went with curiosity and open eyes, and what struck me was the compelling desperation, poverty, the harshness of the climate and the desolation of the region. My heart opened to subjects that might seem unimportant or inconsequential. I did not look for the spectacular, but for empathy. I wanted to show a feeling as much as a place, to capture meaning by looking for the love within the plea, “Baby please don’t go.” I wanted to show what was left of this fertile region, to show social reality pushed up against a song, tied to the cradle of American roots music.”