Duncan was brought up on the 80s image of America as the creator of all things that an English boy entering his teens should know about, but had never been to the States before this trip. I, on the other hand, am half American and spent many summer holidays there.
My America was one of Grandma’s cookies, lake swimming and the annual pair of shiny new trainers. With recently mounting evidence in the press and suggestion through hearsay that the America we believed in as British kids was fading fast, we wanted to have a look for ourselves.
We drove from Michigan to Louisiana, following a route determined not by a map but by the suggestions of strangers we met along the way. We asked them about their relationship with their country, the changes in their lives over the last decade, and their hopes and fears for the future. Through these conversations we traveled a new, unfamiliar American landscape: troubled by conflict at home and abroad, politically divided and economically uncertain.
Briony Campbell and Duncan Nicol Robertson
First screened at [E]strange[d] interior[ized] Landscape
group show at Casa das Artes, Portugal.
Curated by Miguel Proença and Armando Ribeiro