Interrogations

With Interrogations, I explore the contemporary narratives attached to America's military landscapes. This work primarily focuses on the United States military equipment loaned for public display worldwide. I consider how these displays speak more broadly to contemporary America and the "American Century." In our modern age, where we have so successfully separated ourselves from nature, how does the land and what we place upon it, define us?

The significance of the military in American life and culture cannot be overstated. Over half of the nation’s discretionary budget goes toward the military. The US now has over 750 military bases worldwide. The largest, the White Sands Missile Range, measures 3,200 square miles. Since the founding of the nation, America has fought over 108 wars, with periods of peace difficult to number. Our most recent major confiicts, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, alone lasted 20 years and are estimated to have cost $21 Trillion.

For their ubiquity, these displays of aircraft, tanks, and other weaponry can easily go unnoticed. Yet, once acknowledged, they can seem a national preoccupation. They are found in a wide variety of locations, including civic buildings, farms, hospitals, military bases, malls, museums, parks, presidential libraries, and schools.

In a broader context, this work is a further exploration of an idea put forward by Bruce Chatwin. In his book The Songlines, he describes his travels in the Australian Outback with the Aboriginal people as they move through the land singing of their culture and history. It is these songs that guide them, both literally and spiritually, landmark to landmark, along their journey, reinforcing their relationship to the land. The Aboriginals were not the only peoples to bond in such a way to their environment. Yet, Chatwin’s thesis proposes a further interpretation: the Aboriginal songlines not only bring the land to life for those living in the present, but also bring into being the people and the land itself. The songlines are a form of creation myth, passed down through the generations and projected into the future. In essence, we create what we believe.

Do we, too, have songlines that bring us and the land into being? What are the "songs" we are singing and what do they say about us, our culture, and future?