Wish You Were Here drifts between past, present, and possibility. Through documentary-based photography and film, this experiential exhibit by Stephanie Calabrese reveals how a town is shaped by those who move through it. Monroe becomes a living postcard—inviting you to reflect on what was and imagine what’s to come.

We presented our Results & Recommendations to the Monroe Mayor and City Council on Tuesday, June 9, 2026

Wish You Were Here

Wish You Were Here is a community-centered experiential exhibit created by Monroe interdisciplinary artist Stephanie Calabrese and graphic designer Knoxie le Roux, presented at The Eulalia from January 15 through March 28, 2026.

Step 1: Rewind & Revisit

B&W 2015 photographs paired with 2025 color photographs of the same scenes depicted dramatic and subtle changes to our landscape.

Step 2: Reflect

Sanborn maps (1925) offered visitors a glimpse of downtown Monroe 100 years ago. Alongside these maps, Monroe Area High School, Carver High School and George Walton Academy yearbooks from the 1969-70 integration era introduced people and their influence on place.

Step 3: Remix

An intimate, intergenerational conversion drawn from 50+ interviews of Monroe residents, archival photographs and contemporar video, the “Wish You Were Here” 13-minute film reflects on the lived history of Monroe shaped by agriculture, faith, family and community. Woven through are stories of resilience, resistance, loss, and change. The film looks forward with hope, exploring how community is actively shaped while imagining a more whole future.

Step 4: Recenter

A pin map where visitors marked their home location, alongside a Monroe demographic snapshot depicting key comparisons for population, age, median income, diversity, education, housing and poverty rates relative to Walton County and the state of Georgia.

Step 5: Reimagine

The postcard wall. Visitors hand-wrote answers to three questions on 5×7" white postcards. Visitors were told their postcards would be sent to Monroe City Council for consideration.

Featured in Oxford American

Oxford American featured Stephanie Calabrese’s photography series “Rewind and Revisit” in “Eyes on the South,” a weekly digital photography series curated by the magazine's team to showcase contemporary work from Southern artists or photographers documenting the region. The series focuses on diverse, often complex visual stories, highlighting the culture, landscape, and people of the American South.

See the story