Omen: Phantasmagoria at the Farm Security Administration Archive: 1935-1942

Dark, surreal scenes hidden in an iconic photographic archive of Depression-era America. Drawing from approximately 40,000 works of the Farm Security Administration Photographic Archive (1935–44) housed at the New York Public Library, Omen reviews and reframes this landmark project of modern American documentary photography. The monumental project features works by storied photographers such as Russell Lee, Dorothea Lange, Ben Shahn, Walker Evans, Carl Mydans, Arthur Rothstein, Gordon Parks and Jack Delano. Many of the more iconic images that arose from this initiative were instrumental in constructing a hegemonic narrative of triumph against adversity in Depression-era America. In scrutinizing the backgrounds and secondary characters of some lesser-known photographs, however, a more turbulent story emerges. Omen is co-edited by Mexican artists León Muñoz Santini and Jorge Panchoaga, providing a fresh perspective on this quintessentially American study. The image sequence amplifies the eerie details in enlarged, stark black-and-white images, creatively cropped and abutted together to form insidious connections. These hidden stories are premonitions of the visible and invisible specters of systemic injustice that characterize American society, their cycles renewing with each successive generation. Thus, Omen at once serves as a mirror for the anguished reality of today, and as a device for reflection on how historical and documentary photography is read and understood: taking the editorial gaze to its ultimate consequences. The book includes a narrative text by novelist and poet Lucy Ives. AUTHORS: Lucy Ives is an American novelist, poet and critic. Her books include Cosmogony (Soft Skull Press, 2021), Life Is Everywhere (Graywolf Press, 2022) and The Saddest Thing Is That I Have Had to Use Words: A Madeline Gins Reader (Siglio Press, 2020). She is a professor at Brown University. León Muñoz Santini is a Mexican designer and the publisher of Gato Negro Ediciones. 330 illustrations

'Omen' belongs to a growing canon of creative work reinterpreting the FSA’s archive. -- Matthew Newton Aperture
In 'Omen,' documentary photographs are not only imprints of something once present, now lost, but also portents of futures near and distant. -- Ania Szremski Bookforum

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