60 pages, all shot in 2004. This zine started out as a very personal project, memories from a year in which I graduated high school and began my first semester of college. However, in stray shots, in the margins and in the backdrops, the face of a country bears an uncanny expression.

In taking a closer look at the thousands of digital photos I had taken this year, a broader picture began to emerge: I was reminded of a rattled country, post-9/11, stuck in a war begun under false pretenses, banking its future on a new presidential election. Ultimately I realized the best course in assembling this work was to bring these two phenomena – that of my teenage self suddenly dislocated and that of a country fumbling for normalcy – into the same (sometimes tense) space.

Andrew Piccone

May 2020