Impositions

Moving through the rural midwestern landscape as a visitor I’ve been collecting the histories of the residents. People seem to accept their life in commercial, industrialized agriculture. But just below the surface of these conversations lies a struggle to survive. Resistance is visible in this disjointed, occupied land. Captured scenes of communities projected onto the landscape that was built by industrialization, and the reverse, presents this discrepancy.

Barn 2 Still, Impositions — Barn 2 Still, *Impositions*

Barn 3 Still, Impositions — Barn 3 Still, *Impositions*

Barn 4 Still, Impositions — Barn 4 Still, *Impositions*

Barn 5 Still, Impositions — Barn 5 Still, *Impositions*

Installing the impositions piece

Senior thesis project
University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign
Spring 2021

After a year spent observing, documenting, and doing field projections for the impositions project, this work culminated in a 9 day exhibition at the Krannert Art museum in Urbana, Illinois. The video (shown left), an arrangement of the collected audio and visual field recordings, was projected onto a floating frame defined by windows, glass doors, and picture frames that were found and collected during my time out in the field.

The sounds and images bleed off the hanging frames onto the walls and ceiling, engulfing observers in an atmospheric experience of chirping birds and expressway traffic heard over still houses and industrial machinery.