american postcards
about american postcards

‘American Postcards’ is a collaborative project documenting the experiences and impressions of three UK-based photographers in post-election USA (2004). This photographic project is a collection of individual and personal candid commentaries in picture-postcard format. Each postcard conveys our immediate experiences through a combination of both visual and literary forms, each image juxtaposed with text.

Following in the traditions of an iconic strain of photographic documentations of America, our project fuses an awareness of these traditions with a contemporary critical edge. The project is an attempt to encapsulate our individual commentaries on the culture and its people, from the position of outsiders. Placing itself at the forefront of contemporary western civilisation, Americas dominant cultural influence has imbedded itself within our individual consciousnesses. Our previous understanding of America was based on fictionalised and romanticised forms of popular culture portrayed to us through the media. The juxtaposition of cultural and political influences, at a time of potentially great political significance, affected our experiences, creating contrasts and conflicts in our impressions.

By adopting the picture postcard format we are using the popular means of expressing candidly ones feelings and experiences of a place and a culture other to ones own. Restrictions in the format limit what can be communicated, while conventional modes of expression affect how these experiences are conveyed – the choice of language and subject matter. The passage of time and distance in the process of the postcard reaching its destination are evident in the end product. These scars and marks becomes an integral part of the project itself since they illustrate the whole process, from beginning to end.