The Beating of the Heart
2011 - present
The Beating of the Heart is a dispatch from a place where I both do and do not belong. In 2011 I began photographing in the small town of Webster City, Iowa following the closure of the local Electrolux factory, which moved to Mexico. Many hundreds of people were laid off. I was attracted to narratives of hardship and resiliency, with a desire to create a record of the rippling consequences and how individuals confront circumstances differently.
Very quickly, however, I found myself equally drawn by the simple fact that this most quintessentially American place felt exotic, even foreign. Why? From the standpoint of a journalist, to empathize is critical to honest and informative storytelling. Intellectually, I could understand the people I met; yet emotionally I struggled to bridge the gap. As much as anything, to do so became the goal of my work.
Over the next several years I visited more than a dozen times, photographing life in Webster City as well as my own experiences and reactions to it, trying to better understand the people I now consider friends. These photographs are the accumulated record of my journeys, revealing the degree of my bond.
I approached the project with no specific outcome in mind or list of pictures I must take, instead allowing natural connections to guide my experiences. The resulting images, in both subject and style, raise questions of representation and the presence of biases that seep through what is meant to be a rigorously nonjudgmental depiction. While I previously viewed this as a flaw, I now believe it is an inherent, even critical, part of the work, subtly illuminating the American cultural divide.
In late 2019 and early 2020, I undertook a residency at Webster City’s local print daily newspaper, the Freeman-Journal. My role was that of a staff photographer at a paper that had none. After years of following my own curiosities, a different approach was necessary in order to broaden the project, one that allowed me to put control of choosing what was important to photograph in the hands of someone local and ensured the community would have wide and regular access to the pictures I took. I simultaneously offered a six-week, tuition-free documentary photography workshop to community members in the hopes that hands-on experience with journalism—and a journalist—could help restore trust in an institution and a process that has seen that faith eroded, and leave an impact beyond my brief stay.
Supported by: Magnum Foundation, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Yunghi Grant
Special 32-page, full-color magazine (edition 1000) distributed for free at Donald Trump's inauguration in January 2017 in Washington, DC.
Published in conjunction with Overlapse