The Film Stills series analyzes the impact of consumer motion-picture film or “home movies” on the development and promotion of ideals that are collectively defined as “American.” Still images captured from amateur films, collected by the artist from across the United States, examine similarities in landscapes and environments captured and changes in facial expression and posture at the moment just before and right after the subject recognizes the presence of the camera.
Although each film is specific to one family’s experience, as a whole, this research examines these films as archival documents that portray a time when changes in labor practices and infrastructure made leisure and travel more accessible, and how this media became an instrument for defining and promoting what we now think of as “The American Dream.”
