The Valley of Ashes: Rising Tide

This MRP takes the form of a gallery installation meant to materialize a research process driven by archival images from across North America, along with my own digital photography on location in New York City. My subject is the interaction between the 1939 World’s Fair in New York City, the sensitive land and toxic landfill it was placed upon, the people who have engaged with the space, and the onset and context of World War II. The year is 1939, the place is Flushing Meadows Corona Park, in Queens, New York City. To this project, the fair in part represents a full court press on the part of the federal, state, and civic governments to establish a singular sense of “normal” in the name of population control. In this context, the side-show stands in opposition to imposing neoclassical icons that dominate the skies in reliable geometrics. Keywords: 1939 New York City World’s Fair, archival art, photo-based installation, dynamic equilibrium, monuments, 1939, archive, counter-archive.