KILLER VAN, MAN!: JOE STEVENS ONGOING PHOTO PROJECT

Joe Stevens, a filmmaker and photographer whose work has been featured in the MoMA in New York, Creative Review and the Guardian, has created a curious ongoing project called Vans and the places where they were: A photo documentary which chronicles surviving custom and conversion vans on the west coast from the 70’s and 80’s. Originally started over a decade ago in 1996, the project now includes hundreds of images shot on 120 mm film and “examines the dialogue which exists between a van’s design aesthetic and that of its surrounding environment.”

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While discosalt and chicks equally share love for these shaggin’ wagons, they have been dying a slow death in favor of more  fuel-efficient transportation and will surely be erased from the road entirely (tear).  Luckily for all of us, Joe is carefully chronicling these 4-wheel rock and roll dinosaurs that once reigned supreme as the ultimate self-expression vehicle.  For Joe Stevens, “the goal of the project is to one day shoot the last remaining van on the final frame of photographic film in existence. Then the project will be finished” . Check out more of this insanity (to date) HERE.

…and if you are on a van kick now like I am, you should peep some more vintage vandemonium found HERE.  Just mentally insert yourself into these pictures and feel the awesome power of the van.

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