Valley of Shadows

Valley of Shadows is a body of work about the phenomenological effects of vision technologies on the perception of migrants and refugees crossing the border into the United States. A 4x5 camera is used to make wet-plate collodions from appropriated infrared images. The images used in this series were collected from the United States Border Patrol and border-watching vigilantes. This translation from digital image to 19th century process is intended to expose the imperialist worldview historically embedded in digital imaging. The use of wet-plate collodion transforms infrared surveillance images into unique objects that resemble the landscape photography made during the period of westward expansion in the United States. In so doing the migrants and refugees of today become a visual reverberation of the American migrations of another era.