Noah McLaurine is currently a contributing faculty member at the Santa Fe University of Art and Design. He received his MFA in Photo, Video, and Related Media from the School of Visual Arts in New York City. His current photographic work explores the concept of erosion in relation to landscape, culture, and information. He is a founding editor of Cousin Corinne’s Reminder, a photographic and literary journal based in Brooklyn, New York. He has taken part in exhibitions in Albuquerque, Santa Fe, New York City, and Seoul.
(How I Learned to Stop Worrying and) Love the Bomb
These redacted images illustrate the intentionally selective framing and storytelling inherent in our nation’s proud and painful nuclear history. Since moving to New Mexico two years ago, I have been fascinated with understanding its monumental landscape and complex history. Exploring its public lands, historic sites, military installations, and government records the legacy of the nuclear bomb surfaced again and again. Yet, for every nuclear-branded bookmark or military pamphlet detailing official history, there are myriad things that go unsaid.
As we collectively enter a political moment where truth is increasingly flexible and narratives are constantly being altered, this work urges the viewer to pay as much attention to what is left out as to what is said. Bold black redaction of familiar mushroom cloud-shaped explosions and the iconic fat man bomb casing are shown alongside narrative texts which tell a simple and one sided history about America winning the war, the repercussions of the bombings left out, the omission of hundreds of thousands of lives.
To view more of Noah’s work, please visit his website.