American Shadows: A Journal of Fears in Four States
Set in the spring and summer of 2020, the book is a select timeline of national events and personal anxieties experienced during the first few months of the COVID-19 crisis. Each fear is expressed as a dated journal entry, and is paired with a news article published the same day. The two are symbolically connected and reified using shadowgraphy- the art of hand shadow puppets. The fleeting, insubstantial, and ominous nature of shadows acts as a metaphor for the increased instability and isolation of life during the pandemic.