Omen. Phantasmagoria at the Farm Security Administration Archive 1935-1944
León Muñoz Santini, Jorge Panchoaga
RM Editorial, co-published with Gato Negro Ediciones
English
Photographers: Russell Lee, Dorothea Lange, Ben Shahn, Walker Evans, Carl Mydans, Arthur Rothstein, Gordon Parks, Jack Delano.
Text by: Russell Lee, Dorothea Lange, Ben Shahn, Walker Evans, Carl Mydans, Arthur Rothstein, Gordon Parks, Jack Delano.
Soft cover
168 pages
235 x 335 mm
2021
ISBN 9788419233103
“Omen” reexamines the Farm Security Administration’s photographic archive, revealing a lesser-known narrative that challenges traditional views of American history.
This book’s visual sequence breaks norms, creatively cropping images from the Farm Security Administration archives (1935-1944) at the New York Public Library.
Lucy Ives, the acclaimed American writer and poet, skilfully penned Omen’s captivating text. Ives has firmly established herself as a leading voice in the contemporary literary world, with numerous critically acclaimed publications to her name.
Chasing the ghost, the traces of oblivion, and the echoes of what was and no longer is, the book *Omen* is a revision and reframing of a fraction of the photographic archive of the Farm Security Administration (1935- 1944), hosted at the New York Public Library. That program was one of the milestones of modern documentary photography, instrumental in constructing a hegemonic narrative; one mainly about triumph against adversity, division, and catastrophe in the recent history of the United States.
But by gazing over that monumental set of images; by scrutinizing the corners of the pictures, the backgrounds, and details; by examining the secondary characters; in what should not be there and what appears by chance, accident or error, it is possible to discover a different narrative, one that is thicker, murkier, more troubled, complex, contemporary and contradictory. Both a shatter and an apex: a premonition of the genealogical continuity of the many (tumultuous, visible, and invisible, thunderous, and silent) systemic violences that make up the face of American society.
A book that serves as a mirror for the distressing reality of the United States these days, and, at the same time, as a device for reflection on the way historical and documentary photography is read and understood.
About the Authors
León Munõz Santini, born in Mexico City in 1976, is a self-taught designer, publisher, and photographer. He has developed his career primarily in editorial design, with a focus on literature, social design, and photography. His work has been commissioned by various institutions in Mexico and internationally. He is the Author of; Horizontales y verticals (2012) and Satán (2017). In 2013, Munõz Santini founded Gato Negro Edicones, an independent and anti-authoritarian publishing project that explores the possibilities of the book format, in hopes to redefine the boundaries of editorial language.
(source: https://reedsy.com/munoz-santini-leon)
Jorge Panchoaga is an anthropologist and photographer. He develops works related to issues of identity, memory, language and the relation between the human being and its environment.
(source: https://sustainablemountainart.com/jorge-panchoaga/)
