North Carolina-based photojournalist Kate Medley visits campus to engage with classes and community around new exhibition.
AUBURN, Ala. – At a North Carolina Quick Stoppe, gas station attendant Marta Miranda confidently poses with a metal tray of crispy fried chicken, standing amidst beef jerky and road trip snacks. Kate Medley, a North Carolina-based photojournalist, is taking her portrait as part of an ongoing project. The attendant smiles softly, her eyes just shy of the camera’s inquisitive lens, as if to keep the secrets of her scald to herself. Miranda is just one of the subjects in “Thank You Please Come Again,” an exhibition of photography documenting the evolution of the American South through the lens of gas stations, convenience stores and quick stops that serve up food—and the people who run them, now on view at The Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art. “This body of work…is about an evolving South and the diversity of the South and celebrating those changes and that culture,” said Medley.
Marta Miranda cooks fried chicken at the Quik Shoppe located at a Shell station on the corner of South and East Blvd. in Charlotte, NC. (The business is now called Market Express, but locals continue to call it Quik Shoppe.) Originally from El Salvador, Miranda has been frying chicken for this company for 18 years.
Originally hailing from Jackson, Mississippi, Medley has covered news across the South for national news outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and The Washington Post. “I think of myself as a journalist first,” Medley said. “When I do work covering national news around the South, I go out as a reporter. I go out with the goal of talking people, observing the scene and bringing back a narrative about that scene. My tool for doing that is primarily photography.”
While Medley’s work for news outlets requires her to “get out of the way of the work,” Medley’s “Thank You Please Come Again” project—which now spans over a decade of Southern history—demanded a different approach. “I see the difference [between photojournalism and art] as: artists bring, intentionally, great perspective to the work that they’re creating—they bring their identity to the work that they’re creating,” Medley said. “This project is a little bit different in that I’m trying to bring a perspective. I am trying to curate this body of work that pushes back on some ideas about the South and introduces new ideas, hopefully, about what a changing South looks like and can be.”
Medley’s work focuses on local establishments like convenience stores and service stations in small Southern towns that also serve customers unique bites. Her photos often capture bright red lettering advertising menus of pork cracklins, crawfish etoufees and hamburger steaks to customers, while shelves are lined with everything patrons could need from over-the-counter medications to packages of instant grits. Her focus on food is intentional: “I think you can explore so many layers of this region by way of food, by way of what we’re eating,” said Medley. “How we’re preparing that, what is the history behind those choices, what is the conversation that’s happening at the table, who’s invited to be at the table, and how are all these things changing?”
Photojournalist Kate Medley (middle), pictured with Auburn University Advanced Reporting students.
Medley visited Auburn this past fall to meet with undergraduate students in photography and journalism courses, as well as seventh graders, as a part of a longtime City of Auburn collaboration, the Auburn Studio Project. “In addition to exhibiting art, the museum’s mission calls for outreach such as these kinds of direct encounters with contemporary artists and scholars to elevate the student experience on campus and serve the broader university community,” said Cindi Malinick, The Jule’s executive director. The photojournalist is also jurying the community response, putting out a call for submissions to the Osher Life Long Learning Institute, BraveHeart Center for Place and Purpose in Auburn University’s College of Liberal Arts, journalism and studio art students and local seventh graders. “Kate’s work helps a breadth of learners discover the importance of photography and its applications,“ said Malinick. “She is also telling a powerful visual story about our region and who we are today.”
Medley was recently interviewed for an upcoming podcast episode produced by The Jule, with questions curated by students participating in the museum’s Student Guide program. Guides were particularly interested in Medley’s examination of work, the theme of this year’s exhibitions at The Jule. “The people that are featured in this work—the people who run these gas stations—they are not accustomed to being in the limelight,” Medley said. “They are not accustomed…to people being interested in who they are and what they do.” Medley’s subjects often think of their daily jobs as monotonous, with the photojournalist pointing out that many people holding the same beliefs.
“When I first started out…about ten years ago, I was on my way somewhere else, usually, and saw something as I passed that was of great intrigue and caused me to stop and turn around and go in,” Medley said of her approach to “Thank You Please Come Again.” And the photojournalist also makes it clear to her portrait subjects serving up food to their neighbors that she’s not there to review the establishment or feature them on social media. “What I am trying to do is celebrate the people and the culture of these spaces, and there’s something about them that I find interesting, something about them that I think contributes to what is unique and special about the South.”
Medley’s exhibition is on view at The Jule through May 25, 2025 and her jurored community response will be displayed alongside her works in the spring. The photojournalist is due to return to the museum on April 24 for The Jule’s weekly Common Grounds series, in which she will be in conversation with the College of Liberal Art’s Director of Strategic Initiatives and Programs, Joan Harrell, whose Advanced Reporting students met with Medley in Fall 2024. Admission and registration are free. Visit jcsm.auburn.edu for more information.
