The New Heartland

These photographs investigate the social landscape of Ohio in the years 2004-2009. They illustrate the condition of a region that is widely perceived as representative of the American mainstream and they reflect ongoing changes in American values, cultural attitudes, and economic conditions in the first decade of the 21st Century. The rolling farmlands and idyllic small towns that used to define Middle-America are rapidly giving way to vast developments of mini-mansions and "lifestyle centers" designed to evoke an imagined era of luxurious consumerism, while traditional regional characteristics are becoming effaced by a ubiquitous global culture of global marketing. In the new heartland you can buy a quick fix of trendy espresso even out among the cornfields.