In this body of work, I aim to illustrate the American landscape in a constant state of reinvention. America is—and has always been—a collective investment in a set of ideas and ideals in addition to a tangible place. The American landscape has long been a site of ideological projection, deliberately—and often violently—shaped to reflect and reinforce certain national mythologies. These myth-making projects, in addition to having profound ecological consequences, have naturalized deeply problematic notions of American heritage and belongingness, which are encoded in our culture’s most basic assumptions about American geography. Some cultural reformers have grounded their visions for the country in arguments about American history, often retroactively inventing a presently convenient and usable past for the relatively young nation. These projects are often rooted in problematic notions of ‘heritage’ and tend to instrumentalize nostalgia. Other visionaries have looked forward to an imagined future—often envisioned as a utopia of limitless progress—while distancing themselves from tradition. America has long wrestled with these seemingly contradictory commitments to tradition and progress—simultaneous obsessions with preservation and novelty. I am particularly interested in cultural movements that blend the two, claiming to promote a “tradition of progress” by presenting the old in the shiny wrapper of the new, the cheap, or the makeshift, or—conversely—offering up the modern within the quaint trappings of the old and comfortingly familiar.
In these photographs, I examine the construction, deconstruction, and ongoing cycles of repurposing that continually reshape the American landscape. I look at how the suburban American built environment exposes, constructs, and maintains certain American myths and cultural aspirations, particularly at sites designed for tourism, escapism, and nostalgia. I document monuments-in-the-making, artificial utopias, factories of fantasy, and public spectacles under construction.