I Dream of Dust

Book excerpt: An exploration of isolation, tension, and masculinity in the seldom seen region of the Eastern plains of Colorado. Disruptive in its absence, I Dream of Dust strips away context, color, and familiar visual cues, asking the viewer to remove assumptions and not idealize or criticize, but to instead simply exist in quiet reflective space. While being aware of the common trope of documenting "left behind" America, Ben P. Ward hopes to subvert our tendencies to romanticize nostalgia through this work, and instead examine the influence of geography on identity: the tendency of a group of people to mirror the land they inhabit, and the tendency of the land to be equally shaped by its inhabitants.