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In Trail’s End, Photographs And Found Objects Combine To Create A Reconstructed Lost Home

In Trail’s End, Julie Gautier-Downes has created a walk-in installation, in which she combines photographs that she has taken of the Mojave Desert with a living room that she has built in the gallery.

Upon entering the space, the viewer is immediately confronted with a view of a barren, desert landscape seemingly devoid of life. Once the land of the final Pioneer Act, which attracted hundreds of settlers looking to build new life in the freedom of the desert, the difficult environment and economy, challenged its settlers’ ability to survive. Most of the occupants fled in search of an easier way of life, leaving behind houses and trailers with artifacts of these failed settlements.

Though a construction, Trail’s End seeks to evoke the same feelings of loneliness and loss that the real abandoned homes have, leaving the audience wondering who could have inhabited the spaces and what circumstances drove them away.

In Trail's End, Photographs And Found Objects Combine To Create A Reconstructed Lost Home

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Julie Gautier-Downes was born in San Diego and relocated to New York City in 2001, prompting her bi-coastal identity and interest in perceptions of home. She received her Bachelor of Arts from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 2011 and her Master of Fine Arts in Photography from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2014.

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