Marshmallow snow, bologna mountain ranges, and milk lakes define the landscapes of Barbara Ciurej and Lindsay Lochman’s photo series “Processed Views.” The artists utilized familiar American junk food to create artificial nature scenes that simultaneously repulse and fascinate. The series was intended as a commentary on America’s reliance on processed foods, which the artists described as a symptom of our collective detachment from nature. “As we move further away from the sources of our food, we head into uncharted territory replete with unintended consequences for the environment and for our health,” the artists wrote in their statement about the project.
The landscapes in “Processed Views” were inspired by 19th-century photographer Carleton Watkins’s work. Bearing in mind that lumber, railroad, and mining corporations commissioned Watkins’s landscape photography to justify America’s westward expansion, Ciurej and Lochman hold a mirror up to the ways corporate interests still dominate our narratives of progress.
