‘We’d wait all day for a train’: America by rail – in pictures

Justine Kurland’s images capture her unique life raising a child on the road – and offer up a joyous escape from the traditional family photo album



Main image: Counting Boxcars in the Cajon Pass, 2010. Photograph: newschool/Justine Kurland / Mack Books

Tue 16 Apr 2024 02.00 EDT

In her new photobook, Justine Kurland presents an alternative narrative of contemporary American life drawn from road trips taken across the US between the years 2005 and 2010 with her young child Casper. Featuring a sequence of arresting large-format photographs, This Train re-appraises a set of paradigms which retain a tenacious grip on contemporary American life: the nuclear family, the open road, the violence of expansion and the intractable force of the land itself. This Train by Justine Kurland is published by MACK

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