What becomes apparent to an observer of the American landscape? What comes into view for the car-bound traveler cresting the interstate overpass, the pedestrian walking along the sidewalk of the subdivision, or the commuter waiting at the bus stop across the street from the strip mall? How can we understand our nation through these daily views? And, given the unreliability of our attention and our capacity for distraction, should we believe what we see?
The American landscape has long served as a canvas for the imagination of its citizens; we shape it to reflect the stories we tell ourselves about this country. The narratives we preserve and reconstruct from the past, recognize in the present, and project into the future are continually contested and renegotiated. Through my work, I look at how the ongoing argument over what America has been, is now, and should become is inscribed into the landscape itself, a landscape which, despite our attempts to control it, unapologetically tells its own stories about who we are as a people. Undermining narratives of promise and prosperity, the American landscape bears the scars of ecological harm, pollution, and waste. Moreover, as the seasons give rise to cycles of erosion and decay, it reclaims our monuments, testifying to dreams failed or abandoned.
My work is concerned with questions of American culture and geography as well as questions of American vision. I am interested both in what we have done to our landscape as well as how we look at it. What do we choose to see, and what do we look past due to ignorance, disinterest, fear, shame, or exhaustion?