My America features photographs taken at the exact locations where individuals were shot or tasered by law enforcement. These images highlight the local, often mundane settings where the fatal incidents occurred: shopping malls, mobile homes, empty fields, and roadside highways.
Co-curator Dr. Howard Bossen observed that, “In constructing My America, Diana Matar devoted years capturing the unseen traces of human history. Her work of preserving memory in the face of oblivion is especially vital during a time when the most powerful engage in active efforts at erasure. It is a reminder that simply providing records of what has been—lives lost, families destroyed, and community disrupted—can be an act of resistance when federal agents and local authorities attempt to act with impunity and disappear people off public streets.”
In My America, landscape photographs were made at the location where someone died. If Matar was unable to determine the precise location of a murder, she photographed the sky as a symbolic representation of the incident. The photos, along with testimonies and histories, were used to create the story about each individual found in the back of her book by the same name. Each image is not just a landscape; it’s also a memorial to the person who died.
For further details please visit First Unitarian Universalist Church of Houston
