Knives

Knives is an elegy for American manufacturing made over several years, using photography to trace the shifting relationships between masculinity, myth, and violence in a rural town whose economic base, eviscerated by globalisation, is now supported by the prison industrial complex.The project operates as two intertwined stories: one, a typological study of knives crafted in the region since the rise of the cutlery industry 150 years ago, provides connective tissue to the other, which deals in the realities of the local community. The project serves as a microcosm of the larger issues facing the United States, grappling with the effects of automation and outsourcing, cuts in services, and the rise of identity politics. The book includes an essay by artist and critic Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa.