AMERICAN PORTFOLIO
Series : Specimens of American SuBURBIA
The project concerns place representation, cultural identity and nationhood. It seeks to explore master narratives and depiction of the American landscape and architecture.
My view of the American landscape was one of a vast, flat, sparsely populated surface with rail crossings, wooden houses, big cars, and neon motel signs appearing in foggy, semi-rural surroundings. This view was cultivated by movies, tour guides, and by the aesthetics of commercial landscape photography. In my quest of seeking what should be regarded as a typical American landscape, I usually encounter architectural structures less pictorial, more universal, yet more complex and, so to speak, more dystopian than those I had in mind. This realization has made me question the identity of the place and in general the identity of any place. My work reopens a conversation on place representation, the spirit of place, national identity, topography and geography.