Restland

Cemeteries are powerful tools for building cultural narratives around individualism, achievement, and national identity. These fabricated environments rely heavily on visual and spatial cues, including mimetic architecture and evergreen landscaping, to inspire feelings of reverence and aspiration. Just as obituaries tend to soften the less admirable qualities of the dead, cemeteries are similarly euphemistic about the personal and cultural histories they contain.

Restland questions the perceived need for the sentimental, one-dimensional stories American burial sites are designed to tell. Named for a defunct cemetery in Burbank, the corporate-coded pun recalls mortuaries invented for film, such as Whispering Glades (The Loved One, 1965) and Slumber Inc. (Diamonds Are Forever, 1971). These facetious, archetypal representations of the funeral industry inform the cinematic framing and observational humor of the images.

Though photographed over a period of two years in geographically and architecturally distinct cemeteries and memorial parks in California, New York, and Massachusetts, together, the images form an amalgamation –– a singular fantasy of the American way of death. However, there are moments when the illusion falls short. Evidence of active construction, glimpses of the surrounding urban environment, and sincere, highly personal memorials, interrupt the mirage of perpetuity. These genuine, human moments are more comforting than manicured lawns or glossy marble slabs. No life has a tidy conclusion and our final resting places –– immaculate though they try to be –– leave so much unsaid.