Ben Altman

Lives and works in Danby, NY, USA

Artist statement

Over the last fifteen-plus years my work has focused on violent turning points of modern history, what it means to inherit these collective traumas, and how they form our world. My practice seeks non-linear understandings of the challenges imposed by the past, with a view to decoding and rethinking the present. To mourn, memorialize, and activate our intractable histories I’ve drawn ideas and materials from a range of practices including photography, video, performance, and sculptural interventions in the land. My current work adds social practice. My work is made in the context of my home, but I have also visited sites around the world. I often use performances that engage my topics bodily: in Guantanamo Basement I administered abusive interrogation techniques to myself; for The More That Is Taken Away I hand-excavated a mass-grave-like pit behind my house, photographed myself in it, then buried life-size prints of the resulting images. Recently my wife and I stretched our funds to buy and protect 38 acres of forest and field next to our home in rural Danby, NY. We quickly recognized that our title to this land originates in the genocide of Gayogohó:nǫˀ (Cayuga) people, who were violently and fraudulently dispersed in the late 1700’s after over 10,000 years of stewardship. My current project, I Own This Stolen Land, responds to this continuing displacement. While my past practice explored roles of victim, bystander, and perpetrator; this new work emphasizes my role as...

Artwork

• I Own This Stolen Land/220917-1, 2022. Photograph, Pigment Inkjet Print. Digital composite, many focus-stacked frames, joins are intentionally left slightly visible. Standing texts cut from upcycled plywood and mounted on old fence-posts from the site. Ground text formed by laying heavy wooden letters on the grass for several months prior to late-summer mowing.
• I Own This Invaded Land/230916-1, 2023. Photograph, Pigment Inkjet Print. Digital composite. Digital composite of several focus-stacked frames, joins are intentionally left slightly visible. This is one of many ash trees killed by the invasive Emerald Ash Borer beetle. The squiggly trails on the surface of the wood, visible where the bark has been removed to create the letters, were made by the larvae of this pest, which rapidly destroys the tree's vascular system. The frame is a unique piece made from a different ash tree, using the material marked by the invader.
• I Own This Bereft Land /231208-1, 2023. Photograph, pigment inkjet print. Digital composite of several focus-stacked frames, joins are intentionally left slightly visible. Letters carved into a downed beech tree with signs of invasive Beech Bark Rot. The standing ash tree in the near background was killed by Emerald Ash Borer, and the hemlock behind it is dying from the Hemlock Wooly Adelgid, both invasive. Unique frame, see above.
• I Own This Sacred Land/231028-1, 2023. Photograph, pigment inkjet print. Digital composite of several focus-stacked frames, joins are intentionally left slightly visible. Hand-mown hay, dead leaves.
• On Return, 2023. 4K video
• I Own This Marginal Land, 2022. 4K video
• Reel of photographs, 2023. Photographs, Pigment Inkjet prints. Mostly 60" long, last five are 20 x 30.
• I Own This/220828-1, 2022. Photograph - pigment inkjet print. Digital composite of two frames, join is intentionally left slightly visible. Text cut from upcycled plywood.
• I Own This/220316-3, 2022. Photograph, pigment inkjet print, upcycled plywood.
• I Own This Unceded Land 221028-4, 2022. Digital composite of three focus-stacked frames, joins are intentionally left slightly visible. Text is formed from hand-scythed, hand-raked late-season hay. In this image it is picked out by a heavy hoar-frost. Unceded land was obtained from Indigenous inhabitants by force or fraud, as opposed to a "valid" purchase or treaty.
• I Own This Wounded Land 220906-1, 2022. Photograph, pigment inkjet print. Digital composite of several frames, joins are intentionally left slightly visible. The text was carved into the rock in-situ.
• I Own This Invaded Land/231219-1, 2023. Photograph, pigment inkjet print. Digital composite. The tree is an ash, killed by invasive Emerald Ash Borer beetle. The larvae of the Borer eat the cambium layer under the bark, destroying the tree’s vascular system. They leave the distinctive trails that can be seen where I have removed bark to make the INVADED text
• I Own This Stolen Land, 2023. 4K video
• Kahsenniyo Kick/Cascade, 2023. 4K video
• Monty CampbellJr./The Land, 2023. 4K video