American Paradise, 2025, archival pigment print dust arranged in 125 glass specimen jars
American Paradise consists of 125 specimen jars filled with archival pigment dust removed by hand from a large-scale advertisement for a plantation wedding venue. The photograph once performed a familiar cultural task: to transform a site of historical violence into a space of leisure, romance, and consumption. Here, I do not re-present the image. I dismantle it. The dust is collected after the surface has been worked beyond recognition.
This photograph was not a record but an instrument — this is a medium that does not simply depict myth, but manufactures it. By sanding down the image, I refuse any narrative authority and offer instead its material failure.
