Deborah Springstead Ford

In my work, I use photographic (film-based) images of landscapes and geological forms symbolic to me as an avenue to examine the historic impetus for westward expansion, colonialism and the search for natural resources. I attempt to create visual narratives that gain their ambiguity from the photographic techniques employed as well as the juxtaposition of the visual data from maps, artifacts and other text.

I use these images to explore ideas surrounding westward expansion; particularly the roles of women in culture, and the economy as well as an examination of environmental factors related to mining and land use practices. I am more and more interested in the motivations, sacrifices and belief systems behind colonialism in general that laid the groundwork of the American Dream and now plague us in our consumer based society.

Historic maps give us pictures of history as Eurocentric, but oftentimes, cartographers were influenced by indigenous peoples, the local terrain, as well as personal and political quirky motivations of the time. Through the use of these maps, I am hoping to challenge and reflect upon some of the fundamental concepts associated with geography as a cultural construct and issues of colonialism through juxtaposition of place names.

While I focused on images of landscape as symbolic of westward expansion, I began to pay more attention to how this expansion affected land use practices, species habitat and other conflicting cultural values found within the American West.