Tens of thousands of pictures were taken – then forgotten.

Landscapes disfigured by industry, nature marred by mountains of garbage and scrap cars:  “Documerica” painted a bleak picture of the US in the early 1970s. Launched by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the photography program’s goal was to document the destruction of the domestic environment. 

Documerica came about because of growing environmental awareness within the US population. President Richard Nixon modernized and institutionalized the country’s environmental policy and called for the US to make “peace with nature.”

Starting in 1972, around 100 photographers traveled throughout the United States. Their photographs form a disturbing mosaic, showing a country that has reached the limits of the “American Dream”: permanent growth at the expense of nature. 

“Documerica” follows in the tradition of other projects initiated at the US federal level. But this particular program failed in its historical mission. Thousands upon thousands of photographs simply disappeared into oblivion in the decades that followed.

Now, some of the photographers involved in the project have revisited these images. They comment on the pictures from back then, as they capture the United States of today with their cameras. The documentary mixes personal stories with historical events.

The juxtaposition shows that environmental issues were already apparent in the 1970s: “It was all there, right before our eyes, ” says photographer Arthur Tress, “we still live in the Documerica world.”
 

DW English

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