When I picture the 1950s and ‘60s in America, I picture the idealistic paintings of Norman Rockwell and photos in history textbooks: families happily gathered around a Thanksgiving feast, new cars roaring down new highways, pretty women enjoying the luxuries of microwaves and vacuum cleaners and all the other appliances that make life easier. I picture kids throwing baseballs and walking to school knowing that the world around them is safe.

 

I think the world agrees that this is not the reality for the twenty-first century. Parents get divorced and kids have traded out baseballs for iPads; they have two Thanksgivings with two sides of the family; women have more opportunities to work and all those luxuries are now necessities. Oh, and kids would never walk to school, as the world — between terrorist attacks, shootings, and kidnappings — is definitely n​ot ​safe.

 

But is this “utopia” of the past as perfect as I imagine it to be? In this photo series, I capture symbols of this mid-century life in a modern context. I open with a piece of a white-picket fence and welcome viewers into a home void of worries. As we leave this home, though, we begin to see the deterioration of the outside world: a broken mailbox, rusty keys, and other symbols of the ideal suburban life falling apart.

As we journey into the city, we see a damaged limo and other abandoned cars, representing the decay of this image of wealth and luxury. Some of the biggest issues facing today’s cities, such as gentrification and racial inequality, are issues that have been around since this post-war era and that we still face today. And maybe these photos won’t change these issues. But they can bring awareness to them. They can serve as a reminder to spread love, the only thing that can make a messy world feel like a picture-perfect painting.