[Signed & hand-printed] THIS TRAIN by Justine Kurland Justine Kurland Photobook

About the productJapanese

This book was shot over a five-year period from 2005 to 2010 while she was traveling across the US with her young son, and includes portraits of the trains she encountered during the trip and her son Kasper, who accompanied her on the journey, against the backdrop of natural scenery. Kurland has actually produced three photo books on the same subject up to now. Her previous works, Highway Kind (2016), Spirit West (2014), and This Train is Bound for Glory (2009), have different titles, and even though they are works of road trips taken during the same period, they have been edited and produced with new thoughts. In this work, the main focus is on her personal memories as a mother who spent time with her children, the birth of the "railroad," which is indispensable when talking about the Anthropocene, and her examination as an artist of the dark history of America that the "railroad" symbolizes (the unfair treatment, discrimination, and working conditions that Chinese immigrants were forced to endure in the 19th century to establish the railroad). At first glance, the spiral bound landscape binding and thick cardboard cover make it seem like a family album containing personal records, but just like her previous work, ``SCUMB Manifesto,'' which focused on feminism, it can be said to be a book that takes a sharp look at social issues.
Text: Miwa Susuda (Manager of Dashwood Books/Director of Session Press)

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This is a collection of works by American photographer Justine Kurland. Set against the backdrop of a road trip she took across America with her young son between 2005 and 2010, the work depicts two intertwining stories.

The accordion-bound book's front cover features a series of large-format photographs of the author and her children taken along road trips, subverting the traditional family album and telling a story of queer motherhood and image-making that connects with Carland's maternal lineage, whose traversal of the American landscape was a pressing issue.

On the reverse side, Kurland's photographs of trains crisscrossing the American landscape deconstruct the familiar myth of the railroad as a harbinger of modernity, drawing attention to how tracks often overwhelm the natural surroundings, yet also fragment and blot the landscape with bare swaths of asphalt and eerily perfect parallel lines.

Opening and closing with original texts by Constance Debre and Lily Cho, the book treats the American landscape as a cultural allegory that masks the history of Chinese migrant labor and the price of freedom exacted upon its people. Kurland also reassesss a set of closely-related paradigms that continue to dominate contemporary American life: the nuclear family, the open road, the violence of expansion, and the insurmountable power of the land itself.

This work is a signed limited edition of 1,000 copies, and includes a hand-printed, signed and numbered edition by the artist.

Product Information

release date Available now

Part numberGPHT11871W-9781915743299

Specification Hardcover / Signed / Includes one hand-printed print (signed and numbered / H164 x W203mm) / H183 x W253mm / 102 pages

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