B. NEW JERSEY, 1958; LIVES IN WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS
Susan Mikula embraces the unpredictability of expired Polaroid film and antique Polaroid cameras. Her family had a Polaroid 100 Land Camera in the early 1960s, and Mikula has said, “Polaroid has been part of my early photography consciousness since childhood.” Decades later, working with a mix of old and new technologies, she constructs her work within rigorous, self-imposed limits and a meticulous process: available light, modified vintage cameras, and a stockpile of film that is no longer made and often refuses to yield an image or, when it does, contains what most photographers would lament as imperfections, but which she welcomes.
In 2017, Mikula was commissioned by the U.S. Department of State to photograph the border town of Laredo, Texas, amidst polarizing national debates about immigration and border security. The resulting project, shown here, is “on the Cruising Cloud-/The interdicted Land.” Mikula describes her photographs of this iconic border town as “rooted in that deep and complex history of shared cultures, shifting dominance and the present tense moment in relations along the international border.” Against this backdrop, the work — made with an antique camera that embodies the vision of America as it was in the 1970s and ‘80s — conveys a sense of foreboding and unease.
This installation is part of the exhibition Parallel Lives: Photography, Identity, and Belonging, curated by Maya Benton. Parallel Lives draws attention to complex notions of community and belonging, and in particular how our social and familial relationships have been reimagined as a result of the conditions of isolation and uncertainty imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Photo: Susan Mikula, on the Cruising Cloud—/The interdicted Land #33, 2017