With the generous support of Leica, I was able to travel to western South Dakota and Nebraska and photograph across the land that the Sioux and Cheyenne tribes once freely roamed.
These photographs are from a series of landscapes about American history. Not the history we are taught in our schools of George Washington crossing the Delaware, or Thomas Jefferson writing the Declaration of Independence, but rather a history closer to my heart, a history of violence and conquest and the struggle for freedom and equality. Each photograph is from a place forgotten, ignored, or memorialized, because what we choose to remember about our past is as compelling as what we choose to forget.
I’ve also interwoven recent events of historic significance: A decommissioned nuclear Minutemen missile control center, the grassy knoll in Dallas where President Kennedy was assassinated, Ronald Reagan’s 100th birthday celebration in Simi Valley, California, and the first day in New York State that gay and lesbian couples could legally marry.
In my mind, as an American, they are all connected.
- Andrew Lichtenstein
With support from Leica Camera
