the beautiful

Although the invention and use of the photographic medium has been instrumental to environmental protection, it has simultaneously been detrimental in its promotion of destructive ideologies and desires. By looking at historical and cultural markers such as Manifest Destiny, Western genre films, the road trip, and contemporary social media culture, the beautiful uses the very medium it is critiquing to delve into the contested notion of “the West,” its intertwinement with colonial-capitalism, and how depictions of the landscape are constantly evolving and are especially prescient and problematic in this time of climate crisis. The work documents my experience traveling through the Western United States, free camping on public lands with my dog. Due to traveling with an animal, most areas in the National Parks (which are aimed to preserve nature, but have become sites often overrun by tourists and their selfie-sticks) were off limits. This obstacle enabled me to search for locales that were outside of the usual confines, allowing for a more solitary experience with nature, one which felt more “pure” and “untouched” (although it has been home to and shaped by Indigenous people far before the first settlers laid claim to it). the beautiful holds the heartbreak of bearing witness to both the beauty and the destruction of the natural world.