Advertisements for Celestial Expansion
four-color screenprints
16 x 24 in
editions of 20
2014
Advertisements for Celestial Expansion is a series of four-color screenprints of digital collages that juxtapose imagery borrowed from the NASA image archive, Homestead Act era railroad advertisements, and vintage Arizona Highways magazines. The works explore potential parallels and differences between the future of untouched landscapes beyond earth and an historic interpretation of landscape that allows the interests of Western civilization to conquer.
This series is part of a larger body of work titled Go West and Conquer All Above You, and it addresses the romanticism surrounding exploration and the human tendency to organize geography. It specifically considers the efforts of contemporary space programs in relation to the mindset and attitude of American pioneers of the Westward Expansion. The work was made with the hope of illuminating how an overzealous romance towards wilderness can ultimately lead to the negation of the wildness that was initially attractive. The work was made with the intention of cultivating a future which thoughtfully heeds lessons from the past.
Made in collaboration with Lee Cody.