The Un-United States, Ohio to Vegas / by KARIN-BAM STOWE

I travelled to see my younger brother who’s lived in the States for 15 years. I  arrived in Montpellier, Idaho, a little town on the old Oregon trail. I carried my Canon 5d camera with me. I met the town people and The Oregon Trail centre asked me to make a promo film for them. I whizzed up an idea and shot for a day, edited for another and as if by magic a story was told. The joys of travels with your auntie-camera always opens doors to people’s lives. I met the 11th Ohio cavalry group, who re-enact the Oregon trail journey and I got to ride with them. America the great contradiction, born of migration, immigrants and the destruction of the indigenous peoples that lived before the white man landed. Now its slowly falling apart, torn between its gun rights, treatment of its minority peoples and is splitting further in half, the extremes of our badly designed systems boiling up into the war of old and new generations. The world is beginning its phase of death or healing, we either stand together or fall apart into tribal conflict. Tick tock. I drive for 16 hours to Vegas to witness the utopian nightmare that awaits those that live Without and enter and embrace all things shiny.   

The Oregon centre celebrates the arrival of the Pilgrims and the trek across the States to settle the land and start a new world in God’s name. Shame the manifest destiny that gripped those early pioneers did not incorporate how best to treat the people that had lived there before their arrived. The world is built on those who came from Europe to invade and this set the scene for how we live today, with those that believe they are masters and destined for better, built on the devastation they laid, took and neglected. The man-without still holds our futures in the balance. Stay tuned in or they’ll tune us out.

The 11th Ohio ride, desiring to be in the past, escaping to a time they think was better, yet they ride on false memories and herald greatness from their forefathers actions. But they shiver coldly when they see how far we have fallen.

The small town of the States are slowly vanishing, the local cinemas empty, the towns void of atmosphere, the streaming online cultures will vanquish these towns into history to be visited only in VR.

Vegas, the streets tell the story of the freakshow that draws hordes of without-gamblers wanting to get a fix of fantasy, sex, chancing and glitz before Monday call’s them back to slumberville.

Such romance.

The showgirls walk up and down all night, supplementing their day jobs for an easy buck, they entice the hordes of male-withouters to enter the casino’s to get closer to that chance of 1 million dollars and freedom.