The Trail of the Dead is a visual anthology of life and death within the central region of Kentucky. Photographic imagery, surveillance footage, and archived media present the intertwined storylines of a family and whitetail deer with shared experiences of trauma, and the landscape understood as home.
This story's root is the 1999 death of my second cousin in an alcohol-related automobile collision. The events preceding and following this incident shape my perception of inherited family trauma.
Deer imagery parallels my family structure with the deer living near near my home. The image of the fawn symbolizes innocence and references the psychological trauma response of fawning (people-pleasing behavior meant to avoid conflict often developed in childhood). Epigenetics (study of how behaviors and environment cause changes to how genes work) and folklore (beliefs passed through generations by word of mouth) provide context for the influence of family history.
My observations of inherited trauma and its mythological connection to nature manifest in a curious anxiety over the fate of the next generation of my family. The tangled presentation of images references the present and alludes to the future— while artifacts of the past linger in the background.