Photographer Sarah Blesener (U.S.) received a $5,000 Smith Fund Fellowship for her project, Beckon Us from Home, which looks at how the interplay of religion, love of country, and military-style training in youth education is being implemented at patriotic camps and clubs across the United States. Photographed in twelve different states, Beckon Us From Homeis an ongoing photography project investigating how the United States instills patriotism and passes down traditions to new generations.
Project Description(submitted by photographer):
BECKON US FROM HOME
This project is about the teaching of “New Americanism” amongst youth in the United States, and the interplay of religion, love of country, and military-style training in this education. For this project, I decided to photograph in patriotic camps and clubs across the nation, where roughly 400,000 children are taught, often with military subtext, what it means to be an American. Here, in this microcosm of a changing nation, teenagers are simultaneously straddling the vulnerability of adolescence and the stripping of individual identity.
Photographed in twelve different states, Beckon Us From Homeis an ongoing photography project investigating how the United States instills patriotism and passes down traditions to new generations, focusing on themes surrounding the interplay of statehood and adolescentidentity.
