The Frontier

"The buffalo trail became the Indian trail, and this became the trader's "trace:', the trails widened into roads, and the roads into turnpikes, and these in turn were transformed into railroads." Frederick Jackson Turner, The Significance of the Frontier in American History, 1893 In American culture, the Myth of the Frontier corresponds to the territorial expansion towards the West during the XIXth century, a moving line between cleared and wild lands, the wild ones to be civilized. American society and identity have been built on this myth and many fictional or real stories have fed into a collective imaginary. In September 2012, I crossed the United States from East to West. Comfortably sat next to the driver, I lived this mythic crossing with the Pacific Ocean in focus. Now it is my turn to feed this collective imaginary by showing from the road this endless, wild and mystical territory.