Field Work

Field Work is a visual photographic exploration which considers the migration from the field to the factory and the consequences of that shift on the American worker. Since the Industrial Revolution, large corporations have formed that monopolize industries such as farming and manufacturing.  These monstrous companies have slowly conquered the American workers’ ability to be self-sustaining and to compete in today’s economic market. Staging my photographs in a field, I use the worker as a mechanism to contemplate the complex relationship between the worker and American industry in contemporary society. The field in my photographs represents the generations of farmers and workers that have physically put hand to soil in order to plant food and sustain life.  The photographs are digitally constructed and then printed on paper that has been imbued with dirt from my land; creating a permanent physical connection between the soil and the paper or image.  Each photograph carries the history and hand of the worker and connects the viewer back to the land.