American Artifacts

The companion volume to Matt Black's critically acclaimed American Geography presents a deeper view of his six-year odyssey documenting poverty in the United States of America.

During his six-year journey across the United States creating the project that became American Geography, Matt Black collected objects in the locations he visited. Each location is designated as an area of ‘concentrated poverty' – a US Census definition for places with poverty rates of 20% or higher. Over time, the objects he found and collected began to take on symbolic significance.

As Black crisscrossed the United States, his collection grew into the thousands: plastic spoons and forks, lottery tickets, liquor bottles, lighters and matchbooks. Some items were important, like job applications, medical paperwork, driver's licenses; some were lost personal effects, like family photographs, bracelets, eyeglasses, notes and letters.