John Gossage: Should Nature Change

In John Gossage’s words, this is a book «with a particular context, of photographs to settle the feeling that I did not understand my home. To do that I set out, starting in 2003, to see what clarity my pictures might bring.» And so came into being these photos of scenes, things, minor events and the look in the eyes of the young, all taken in everyday non iconic places throughout his travels across America. «Should Nature Change,» taken from the Book of Isaiah, is for Gossage both a declaration and a warning: «I am a humanist, like most of us are, I can’t really step back to see the beauty and order of all this; closeness brings chaos and dread in this case. We have done harm to the place we live, I’m told, but it seems to me that we have done the most harm to ourselves and our best-laid plans. The planet has a plan to fix this, if we don’t.»