Epiphany Knedler: Wish You Were Here – LENSCRATCH

I can’t remember where I first came across the work of Epiphany Knedler, but I was so knocked out by the installation of her MFA show that it was hard to forget. She created an immersive space that forced us to reconsider the selling of the West, romanticized, commodified, and sanitized for happy family outings.  As Smithsonian writer Stephen Aron states, “Dismantling cherished fables about the Old West and stripping the romance from the history of “Westward Ho,” newer studies have exhumed the human casualties and environmental costs of American expansion. Offering little glory, these interpretations of how the West was lost have accented the savagery of American civilization.” With all American history, it’s critical to acknowledge the truth.