My grandmother Esther spent the first half of her life in East St. Louis, Illinois, a city likened to a cross between Pittsburgh and the Wild West. Part of the industrial underbelly of America,  it was unregulated, noisy, polluted, and corrupt.  At 48 she and her friend Grace moved their families to California, where she lived for the rest of her life.  As a transplant myself, I’m aware of the continued presence of California in my psyche, so for me this project was about the persistence of East St. Louis in Esther’s life – literally embedding elements of the city in her personal photographs.  The plates here (in collage and gouache) were created for the film below, which uses factory noise as a backdrop to the slideshow.  If you are able, I suggest listening with the sound on.