Who Else But Americans, 2021

Related Tactics (Michele Carlson, Weston Teruya, and Nathan Watson)

Who Else But Americans… is a series of multimedia and socially engaged projects that confront the histories of violence against communities of color often erased in efforts to advance nation building, power, and American exceptionalism. The first iteration of Who Else But Americans… is a window installation of research at the The Luminary in St. Louis, MI which evolved out of an in-person residency that was transformed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent safety protocols. The Luminary gave up their window spaces so that we could present our research exploring the beginning kernels of this project that literally traces the span of the first transcontinental railroad—1912 miles—through images pulled from Google maps, archives, public sources, and taken during our own site visits along the route. Beginning in California, we stop every two miles and take three photographs or screenshots (referencing the estimated 3 lives lost for every 2 miles of track laid) capturing images of the landscape in whatever form it may appear—ranging from dense urban centers to wide open spaces. When using online sources, we may be confronted with the limits of virtual documentation of the physical world, particularly in sites that are not accessible or quite simply illegible. We consider these moments of abstraction important references to the redactions and erasures of history that we will confront through this performative process. We estimate that almost 6000 photographs will be sequenced, printed, and joined together into a large scale book-like sculptural installation that suggests the line of railroad. The photographs will be joined in a way that allows the incredibly long artwork to be folded into one stacked object or unfolded and arranged into a winding structural sequence.

This window installation is a display of research and ideas in progress hung in the windows of the Luminary, St. Louis in place of an in-person residency that was permanently shifted due to COVID-19 restrictions and safety protocols. We are immensely grateful for the Luminary for continuing to support this research despite all the pivots and uncertainties of the times. July 2021