‘Andover At Work’ exhibit focuses on municipal staff

A building inspector walks through a job site, his right arm raised to shine a light on the exposed wall beams. A planner, seated at his desk, aligns an architectural ruler atop a site plan. A police officer holds out her hands, with a duckling’s beak and eyes peering over her cupped fingers.

These are just a few of the 130 black-and-white images that comprise photographer David Whitney’s “Andover at Work” exhibit, the culmination of a year-long volunteer project highlighting the daily work of municipal employees in Andover. The candid, in-the-field photos capture the essence of public service at the local level.

Whitney spent 15 months photographing town staff — riding along in police cruisers and firetrucks, touring the town’s water facilities, and accompanying conservation staff to gather trash collection buoys on the Merrimack River.

“I ended up embedding in various departments and visited repeatedly, which allowed me to get deeper connections and build credibility,” he said.

Whitney said his interest in photographing town employees grew out of his participation in the Andover Leadership Academy in the fall of 2023.

“I saw some of the behind the scenes, got to see a cross-section of the workers,” Whitney said. “And a lot of things I didn’t know.”

A hobbyist photographer, Whitney saw an artistic opportunity to recognize those workers.

“I wanted to show what the job was,” he said, “and give some insight into the person who was doing the job.”

He discussed the proposed project with town staff responsible for the Leadership Academy. They pitched it to Andover Town Manager Andrew Flanagan, who saw it as an asset for Andover’s employee engagement efforts — working to find ways to “tie people at all levels of the organizations to the overall goals, values and mission of the town.”

“David came in with his proposal and we’re like, ‘What better way to engage folks?’” Flanagan said. “Not only engage, but recognize them for their work.”

“Andover At Work,” he added, is an opportunity to “see people in action from the public-facing side, and then employees, who may not otherwise get recognized regularly, have the opportunity to be recognized in a very public way.”

Flanagan met with department heads to discuss the project, at one point introducing Whitney to the town’s senior management team during a meeting before giving it the green light.

Whitney’s first stop, in March 2024, was the Robb Senior Center, before moving to photograph the Public Works Department. From there, the project gained momentum.

Whitney compiled his photographs into books by department, and would then show each department the photos of themselves. He used these books to explain the project to departments he had not yet photographed.

Whitney’s images graced the cover of the town’s fiscal 2026 budget book, and some departments have displayed large prints within their workspaces. The town is considering other ways to incorporate the images into public spaces.

The “Andover At Work” exhibit includes a poster detailing the town’s services by numbers. Whitney, who works in data analysis, described the exhibit “as an educational tool, through photos and these numbers, which are publicly available but no one ever sees [them].”

Flanagan suggested that municipalities “find an avenue to work through” when considering participation in projects like “Andover at Work,” which has contributed to ongoing efforts to underscore how “investing in people has a return in the form of service delivery.”

The exhibition will be on display at the Robb Senior Center through July 31 and will reopen in September 2025 at the Memorial Hall Library in Andover.