Michael Mergen is an artist based in Farmville, VA. Born in 1978, Michael earned a BFA in photography from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 2000 and an MFA in photography at the Rhode Island School of Design in 2011. His work considers the political and civic nature of United States and its citizens through the medium of pho- tography. His work has been featured in Harper’s, Mother Jones, and Once magazines, and featured on Time magazine’s LightBox and Slate. He has exhibited nationally and internationally and his work is held in several public and private collections, including the University of Maine Museum of Art, the Center for Photography at Woodstock, the Longwood Center for the Visual Arts, Urban Outfitters, Inc., and Center for Emerging Visual Artists. He and is currently an Assistant Professor of Photography at Longwood University in Farmville, VA. Today we look at his series Memorials to the War on Terror.
Memorials to the War on Terror
Memorials to the War on Terror documents the memorial landscape of highways, bridges, and other aspects of the road, ceremonially named for American soldiers killed in the various wars against global terrorism. Each photograph represents an individual fatality since September 11, 2001, employing seductive beauty, stark banality, and deadpan simplicity, while imbuing otherwise neutral sites (seemingly) with quali- ties of cultural and political significance.”
To view more of Michaels work please visit his website.