As part of ZU's Innovation Calendar 2023, the College of Arts and Creative Enterprises (CACE) at Zayed University, presents: Twentysix Wawa Stores, by guest artist Eric Weeks, at the CACE promenade gallery in Abu Dhabi Campus. The exhibition will be displayed from 6 February to 20 February 2023. The artist will also give an online lecture on 14 February at 16:30. Participants may use the following link.

https://zu-ac-ae.zoom.us/j/93940186721?pwd=Y3RsL1hyK0V5TDZWVnhueXVRTzJtQT09

Meeting ID: 939 4018 6721

Passcode: 428417

Eric Weeks was born in Summit, New Jersey (USA) in 1965 and now lives and works between New York City and Lancaster, Pennsylvania. His artworks have been acquired by various permanent collections including Los Angeles County Museum of Art (USA), The Art Institute of Chicago (USA), Museum of Contemporary Photography (USA), Maison Européene de la Photographie (France), Bibliothèque Nationale (France), American University in Cairo (Egypt), Yale University Art Gallery (USA) and the Sir Elton John Collection (USA). Weeks has exhibited his photographs and short films nationally and internationally, including in Australia, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Italy, Morocco, Singapore, South Korea, Spain and the United States.

Weeks makes short films and still photographs. His work involves exploration into the nature of humanity by capturing fleeting moments of human connection and disconnection as it passes before his camera lens. His motion work is informed by his long tenure as a still photographer. He composes static frames that rely heavily on formalism, and then allows serendipitous action to play out in front of the camera. These moments are both controlled and at the same time completely random because the actions are purely happenstance. 

Twentysix Wawa Stores (2022), a film, print and book project currently exhibiting at ZU-CACE, examines the Pennsylvania-based convenience store and gas    purveyor Wawa. The film follows the Lincoln Highway, starting in Lancaster, Pennsylvania (USA) and culminates at the   farthest north Wawa store in Elizabeth, New Jersey. The Lincoln Highway was established in 1913 as the automobile became the dominant means of transportation. It is one of the first transcontinental highways that stretched across the United States. Much like Edward Rucha’s quietly contemplative Twentysix Gasoline Stations, published in 1962, Twentysix Wawa Stores unobtrusively observes the phenomenon of automobile culture in America in the 2020’s. We are now at a crossroad, as General Motors recently announced a new policy to sell only zero-emission vehicles by 2035. The use of internal combustion engines in transportation vehicles is ending, and convenience stores based on fossil fuel sales will need to adapt.

The Twentysix Wawa Stores film, book and prints point to Rucha’s Twentysix Gasoline Stations by referencing the same design as that book, as well as the subject of gasoline stations. The work was made during the Covid-19 pandemic, and documents a particular time in the history of the United States, when masks were necessary to enter stores, and oftentimes two trips were required to retrieve the forgotten mask left in the car.