Bury me in the back forty

Bury Me in the Back Forty - Bury Me in the Back Forty documents the author’s hometown, a seemingly typical rural community of just over 900 people. Through photographs, collected objects, community archives, audio recordings, oral histories and sketches, the idea of ​​a prairie town is brought to life. Set against the backdrop of a 1980 community history book, these documents, private objects and memories intertwine to tell an intimate story of rurality. The project is at once a document, an investigation, a performance and a transgression. It is a cartographic illusion, a community scrapbook that contains not only the roses but also the many thorns attached to each stem. The collective virtues and vices found at the heart of any complex place. More importantly, it is simply a story that is recorded, remembered and reconfigured – a layered portrait of rurality that is both unique and universal. The result is the stoicism of place, an existence lived, which roars at times and suffers so quietly at other times. This is not a simple document, it is meant to excite, to amaze, to disconcert, to annoy and, above all, to be revisited.