When donating his World War II photographs of Japanese Americans interned at the Manzanar Relocation Center in California to the Library of Congress in 1965, Ansel Adams wrote, "I think this Manzanar Collection is an important historical document and I trust it can be put to good use." In response to Adams's prompt and the resurgence of legislation targeting women, religious minorities, BIPOC, and LGBTQIA+ individuals, Joseph Maida has reconstructed pages from Adams's 1944 publication Born Free and Equal, incorporating Adams's original negatives and prints into his own collaged interpretations of the work. Maida obscures specific faces, names, ethnicities, and dates in his collaged photographs to bring Adams's project to the fore, illuminating the past's timely relationship to today's social and political climate.
When donating his World War II photographs of Japanese Americans interned at the Manzanar Relocation Center in California to the Library of Congress in 1965, Ansel Adams wrote, "I think this Manzanar Collection is an important historical document and I trust it can be put to good use." In response to Adams's prompt and the resurgence of legislation targeting women, religious minorities, BIPOC, and LGBTQIA+ individuals, Joseph Maida has reconstructed pages from Adams's 1944 publication Born Free and Equal, incorporating Adams's original negatives and prints into his own collaged interpretations of the work. Maida obscures specific faces, names, ethnicities, and dates in his collaged photographs to bring Adams's project to the fore, illuminating the past's timely relationship to today's social and political climate.