His name: Steven Benson.
He just sent us these images from his series called Infrastructure: Highway Deconstruction along with these few words.
The altered landscape has been an integral element of my photographic practice. For the past seven-years, I’ve been creating images that explore the activities and artifacts associated with the process of transforming the landscape by the construction underway for an enormous highway infrastructure project. My goals are very different from anyone else working on the new I-4 highway running through Central Florida. The engineers and construction workers are focused on weight loads and distribution, gravity, traffic flow and water runoff. I’m exploring the construction process from a perspective of re-interpretation and transformation.
The aesthetic strategy I weave into the imagery would normally be associated with the way photographers have approached national parks like Yosemite or Yellowstone. I’m intrigued with the idea of producing images using rebar, concrete and dirt to create beautiful seductive photographs as a way to draw attention to the effects of our interaction with the land. I’m often told the photographs are beautiful. Using aesthetics this way can function as a political statement to undermine the viewers expectations. The complexity of the construction process is experienced as a Surreal undertaking and is included in the visual language of the photographs.
I’m reminded of Margaret Bourke-White when she said, “… industrial forms were all the more beautiful because they were never designed to be beautiful. They had a simplicity of line that came from their direct application of purpose. Industry… had evolved an unconscious beauty – often a hidden beauty that was waiting to be discovered”
The process of making these photographs occur as collaborative activities with individuals I only know through the evidence of their actions. I incorporate the actions of others to recontextualize their effect on the land. I’m imagining a future where National Parks will be abandoned factories. The film ‘Brazil’ comes to mind.
Steven Benson
Website: www.stevenbensonphotographer.com
Instagram: @stevenbensonphotographer & @stevenbensonphoto
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenbensonphotography/
