KRISTIAN THACKER | Dreamland, 2024

These images from the master's thesis "Anamnesis" present a glimpse of the duality of living in Appalachia and cherishing its picturesque environment;  while being complicit in its ongoing destruction via industry and resource extraction. The goal of the work is to present a vision of the region that’s purpose extends beyond value judgments. Rather, it considers the manmade and natural environments of Appalachia holistically, each one integral to the experience and understanding of the other. Following the same aesthetic choices I make in my professional practice as a photojournalist for my artistic practice I blur the boundary between art and photojournalistic documentation. In this way, I adopt the visual language of the news media to reframe elements of the region that the media would otherwise ignore, obfuscate, or pass judgment on. In media clearcut narratives dictate the story to the reader, but here the content and sequence of the images and footage allows an ambiguity to come forward. This ambiguity invites the viewer to consider exactly what it is that they are seeing beyond the surface of the print itself.

BIO

Kristian Thacker is a photographer currently based in Barrackville, West Virginia. His work follows the legacy of centuries of natural resource extraction in central Appalachia. He received his BFA in Photography from Shepherd University in 2004 and will graduate with an MFA in Photography and Intermedia in the Spring of 2024. Select images from his masters thesis Anamnesis were selected for the American Photography 40 annual. His work has been featured in The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, TIME, Vox Media, Barrons, Bloomberg Businessweek, BuzzFeed, NPR, TOPIC, and the Washington Post among others.