LOOKING AT AMERICA: Representations, Simulations, and Messages in the American Cultural Landscape
What is America today, and how does America represent itself? What is the image it constructs and presents to those within it and those just passing through?
These images were shot on road trips across the US over the course of several years. I became more interested in them after moving away from the United States for work in 2016, an experience that made me realize how many of the things I took for granted as normal in the US are uniquely American, and how these photographs of the American cultural landscape reveal something about the nature of the country, its culture, and its values. I’m interested in the way America constructs representations of and about itself — through idealized landscapes painted on buildings, simulated igloos and teepees, quirky consumer goods, and representations of Jesus, guns, Santa Claus, aliens, myths of the old west…
I have always loved these American road trips and I miss them; I miss the often surprising, sometimes beautiful, sometimes disturbing, sometimes sad, sometimes humorous, and frequently contradictory nature of the place I’m from… a place that will always in some way be home, regardless of where I find myself in the world.
