THE NEW COLONISTS

The New Colonists, a project in three parts, begins by presenting the uncanny suburban town of Mars in Pennsylvania, USA. Steeped in midnight tones, her quotidian documentations of gas stations, football fields and fast food joints transport viewers to a time, place and feeling of all American life, but more importantly, human life. The work is imbued with a sense of western normality, whilst hinting to an otherworldly undertone beyond these images.  Interrupting the quietness of small-town America captured in the book are 5 additional sequences of images, which are inserted into this suburban narrative, chronicling the research and individual scientists who are attempting to make colonizing the red planet a reality.  Placed at key intersections in the book, Alcazar-Duarte’s contrasting documentary images capture everything from the top space travel technology in the European Space Agency, to the terrestrial ‘Mars Yards’, where robotic rovers are put through their paces in artificial landscapes of rock and sand. Published by Bemojake, 2017. Hardcover is silver mylar bag, 120pg + 12pg booklet 7.5 x 10"