Above The Fold: 22 Years of War 1999-2021 examines the images that appear on the front pages of the New York Times from the NATO bombing in Kosovo in 1999 to the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. In March 1999, struck by the preponderance of images of refugees fleeing Kosovo, I began saving the front section of the Times when NATO began bombing Serbian military positions there. For Above The Fold, I created 33 categories of images as well as a sorting system so that I could determine where to place the day’s paper when the front-page photo falls within multiple categories. In addition to the installation, a series of photographs of the individual stacks are printed to the actual size of the newspapers with the height of the images (82") determined by the tallest pile: War & Conflict. What started out as my attempt to visualize a war evolved into a multi-faceted project that is a concrete manifestation of contemporary trends and the biases of U.S. media questioning how the mainstream media focus on objectively minimizes systemic injustices and the current threats to democracy with the goal of reimagining a more just future.

More information:
Video: Above The Fold: 22 Years of War, 1999-2021, lecture at the Cultural Mapping: Archives & Afterlives Conference, NewYorkScapes, 2022

Above The Fold: From Columbine to COVID, a conversation with  Marianne Hirsch in doc! Magazine