The same investigation extends to Picher, Oklahoma — one of the most polluted towns in the United States, built on Native American land leased to zinc and lead mining companies for 99 years, and declared a federal Superfund site after lead contamination was found to threaten every resident still living there. The EPA relocated the last of Picher’s population in 2009. Kessler’s panoramic photographs record what was left: empty lots, collapsed buildings, mountains of toxic “chat” — a ghost town’s evidence, juxtaposed in the related video work Landscape You Say against a former resident’s spoken memory of the town as it once was.
Film
Photographs
