Time passes. Roots deepen.
At 17, my great-grandma moved to Oswego, Kansas with her new husband and would raise three children. My family was very involved with their town by owning and operating a restaurant, that later became a hardware store. This is my grandpa’s hometown and I have watched it change drastically since my early childhood visits. Once my grandpa went to college, he left Oswego and would later start his family in Kansas City. We would all gather at my great-grandma’s house for holidays and weekend visits. It was something I always looked forward to even though most people see towns such as this as obstacles to pass through on their journey. To bring attention to how severely this town, and others like it all over the United States, has declined over the past few decades, I recreated my mom’s photographs of Oswego and the surrounding area that she captured in the late 1990s. As time has passed, the trees have overgrown, taking over much of the landscape. When I returned to these places, I was an outsider passing through; however, my familial roots are deeply intertwined with this area as it finds a way to carry on.
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