Prolonged Absence

I grew up on a small generational grain farm in southern Saskatchewan, Canada, surrounded by the detritus of the Dirty Thirties (aka Dust Bowl) farming and financial crisis. Saskatchewan has a grain-farming base. Abandoned farmsteads from this era littered my landscape and the region with weathered, swayback buildings, hinting at a distant time of colonization. My nearest inhabiting neighbors were a mile or more away, and in between and in all directions lay abandoned homesteads. An assortment of furniture, clothes, pictures, and personal items remained behind, denoting the harsh circumstances and haste of abrupt departures.

The intact condition of these sites serves as further evidence of their vastness and isolation. Little was removed or disturbed as the remnants succumbed to time and the elements. Circumventing nostalgia through a more critical eye, I created defamiliarized images of the abandoned interiors. Stripped of place, they become anywhere, documenting the impacts between larger events.

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