Refract: An Open Access Visual Studies Journal

Presented as a video slideshow, the ongoing work A Catalog of American Things borrows the notion of the encyclopedia—an “exhaustive” record of the world. Alternately sardonic and deadpan, the work consists of original photographs overlaid with text and is itself an active archive with the potential to be continuously added to and updated. The attempt to catalog “American things” (from government policies to consumer goods) highlights the impossibility of including everything. What is intentionally omitted or missing due to the subjectivity of organizing material? What are the limitations of a catalog and its presumption to be an “official” document?