2024 - in progress.
This work dissects the interconnectedness of the conservative American family, home, and landscape and how inherited behaviors and beliefs perpetuate cycles of pain and trauma. Subverting traditional form of landscape photography, this work pries apart the unspoken expectations of whiteness and Americanism to examine its inborn violence. Composed of black and white landscape photography, this project subverts the hyper-formality of 19th-century landscape images that accompanied manifest destiny. This historical movement imaged the West as wide open for the taking, justifying white America’s violent occupation. I am co-opting this formality to expose this violence, specifically in Northeastern America. This region, where I am from, is where colonial destruction began but where nationalism, in the present day, easily slips under the radar. Defined by conservatism and nationalism, my upbringing repressed empathy and vulnerability to prioritize pragmatism, Christian doctrine, and rugged individualism. The reflection on my disavowal of these ideals led to investigating the inheritance of behavior, beliefs, and doctrine. I am considering how this manifests not only in myself but in the American landscape and home. Dissecting my inherited traits and the tensions intrinsic to my resistance, I am interrogating what I want to inherit; what do I wish I could repress? Am I doomed to repeat the cycles that came before me?