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M I T C H E P S T E I N
Across the United States, Epstein has photographed nuclear power plants, coal plants, oil-drilling operations, and wind turbines, as well as the people and habitats that must coexist with them. The title of his ongoing project, "American Power," refers to the ramifications of American energy use, as well as to America’s power with respect to the rest of the world. The remarkable landscapes in “American Power” also explore what it is to be American in specific places, at a specific historical and political juncture. Many of the images foreground the strange beauty of the artifacts of industrialized power production. Others treat their subjects with more ambivalence. In Amos Power Plant, Raymond, West Virginia, neatly manicured backyards are haunted by the looming presence of enormous cooling towers. By discovering aesthetic wonder in scenes which can be profoundly disturbing, Epstein underscores the complexity of his critique.
For his "American Power" series, Epstein planned to travel along the Gulf Coast from Mobile, Alabama, to New Orleans, an area that accounts for nearly thirty percent of the United States’ oil production and refining capacity. But the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina in August 2005 closed over half the oil facilities in the region. Instead of looking at oil production, Epstein documented the vulnerability of the energy-producing coast. This image was taken six weeks after the hurricane struck. Although the cleanup was underway, the massive damage to Biloxi was pervasive, and starkly pointed up the vulnerability of human structures in all their forms.
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