From Waco to Oklahoma City (1995)
Type C prints | Variable Dimensions
This work was the first part of a three part series entitled Beyond the Vanishing Point: Media and Myth in America. In the week of May 24 1995 I traveled from Waco Texas, the site of the siege of the Branch Davidian Complex in 1993 by members of the FBI and ATF that led to the death of 28 of its church members, to Oklahoma City for the one year commemoration of the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City which was marked by a controlled implosion of its residual fragment. These seemingly unrelated events were connected by more then their geographical proximity. Both the ending of the siege and the bombing of the building by Timothy McVay occurred on the same day, April 19th, just one year apart. That coincidence provided fuel for speculation as to the possibility that the two events were related and that the latter event was a kind of retribution against and response to the invasion of privacy by the federal government. I went to Waco to see what was left and whether the remnants of the past could provide some answers for the present. My interest in sites of cultural memory in relation to forms of cultural amnesia provided the impetus for trip. I began at the burned out contorted remains of the Branch Davidian Compound which had become a small theme park and space of curiosity. I then traveled on route 35 from Waco through Dallas to Oklahoma City where the controlled demolition of the remains of the federal building was taking place on the one year anniversary of its bombing.