Necessary Fictions
"Necessary Fictions is an arresting follow up to Cornwall’s Welcome to Camp America.”
— Suzanne Révy, What Will You Remember?
Necessary Fictions is a book and forthcoming multimedia installation exploring American "state-created realities." What are stories we are told, the games we play, to manage unsettling realities in this tumultuous time? How are fictions deployed and embraced, and to what end?
1. Atropia documents desert villages and their inhabitants in the fictional country of "Atropia." Costumed Afghan and Iraqi civilians, many of whom have fled war, recreate war in the service of the U.S. military. Real soldiers are dressed by Hollywood makeup artists in “moulage”—fake wounds—for immersive realistic pre-deployment training scenarios.
2. Jade Helm is a found-footage short video about what happened when entire communities mistook wargames for the real thing.
3. Pineland is a trilogy of short films in several genres—or one experimental creative-nonfiction piece—reenacting a real-world incident in which distinguishing reality from fantasy became the difference between life and death. Made in collaboration with the survivor of a police shooting.
Necessary Fictions has been shortlisted for the 2020 les Rencontres de la Photographie d'Arles Photo-Text Book Award,
the 2019 & 2020 Tim Hetherington Trust Visionary Award, and the 2019 W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund Grant.
Production has been supported in part by a 2019 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship, a Leica Women Foto Project Award,
a Harpo Foundation visual artist grant, and a Center for Emerging Visual Artists Fellowship.
Fiscally sponsored by the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA).