When I was ten years old my mother took me on a road trip starting from The Pacific Northwest and continuing towards The Southern Coast and The Southern inland of the USA. With no destinations planned along the way, she would drive until exhaustion. During this trip I documented our journey from the back seat.
I remember that we stayed in a Motel Six, where a night fee was six dollars and our room looked like the scene of a crime. In another hotel we encountered a very sweet Native American Indian family. Our room door didn’t lock, I remember them knocking on our door and bringing us popcorn. I think they could tell we were a mother and daughter alone and in need of company.
The surreal American landscape, and the people we encountered on this journey defines a large part of who I am to this day. I remember I did not want to reach our end destination.
I am still as curious as my ten-year-old self. I want to be at the vanguard reporting as an artist the present-day dynamic in the USA. Susan Sontag stated, “She came to Sarajevo to prove her lifelong conviction that culture was worth dying for.” (1) Like Sontag on a smaller scale, I feel it is my responsibility to engage in my birth country. My parents archive will be used to guide my journey. As well as interviewing photographers and documenting the encounters I will have along the way.
As a child I was already documenting and collecting the world around me and with this research I am continuing to do so.
(1) Moser, Benjamin. Sontag: Her Life and Work. Illustrated, Ecco, 2019
