By Land, By Sea
Comprised of a Cold War superpower and an outpost of the British Empire, Anglo-America is the westernmost front of Western civilization. Stretching from arctic to sub-tropical latitudes and straddling the world's longest non-militarized border, the geo-cultural bloc of Canada and the United States occupies a curious meanwhile between illustrious past and uncertainty. By Land, By Sea is a two-part survey of this vast territory: one part follows rail lines throughout the continent; the other traces a geographic contour around it. This series embodies the contradictory narratives of romantic expansionism and post-colonial, post-industrial malaise; it negotiates a rift between critique and wide-eyed wonder.
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By Rail considers the armature these nations were built upon. In Europe tracks connect historic centres, but North American cities evolved from nowhere whistle-stops; immigrants, Civil War veterans, and raw Chinese labour built an infrastructure for displacing natives with imported populations. Very much a product of railways, this culture is now strangely hostile to them compared with other developed nations. Deutsche Bahn is reaping record profits, Japan sees no conflict between bullet trains and Toyota's market dominance, and China has embarked on a trillion dollar rail overhaul. In contrast, North America nurses a limp auto sector and unfurls more sprawl. Railroads are beloved in a golden foundation myth glow, but travelling with others to a common destination is disdained as vaguely Communistic. In a polarized discourse demanding both change and retrogression, it's no coincidence America's first multi-racial leader resuscitated the decades-dead practise of arriving for inauguration by rail.
By Sea anticipates nostalgia for this time when climate change could be quibbled over and the re-orientation of global power was only likely. It surveys the perimeter of a dominion that begins and ends at sea level: this civilization commenced when Europeans stepped ashore to re-imagine everything between three coasts, and forecasts of waning preeminence are mirrored by literal erosion as rising oceans now cross the threshold.
By Land, By Sea is a frank descriptive title; it also recalls “Paul Revere's Ride” (Longfellow, 1860), the revolutionary poem in which church lanterns alert anti-colonialist Americans to the arrival of British troops (“One if by land, and two is by sea...”). Evoking Patriot vs. Loyalist animosity underscores paradigm shift and incorporates a divided citizenry into this portrayal of the westest West. In addition to vast beauty and complicated grandeur of enterprise, this part of the world is increasingly characterized by hysterical partisan friction.