This land : an epic postcard mural on the future of a country in ecological peril
(Book)

Includes index (pages 164-165).

This Land is an epic mural fashioned by New York artist David Opdyke out of vintage American postcards which he then treated with disconcerting painted interventions. What at first reads as a panoramic bird's-eye view of an idyllic alpine valley reveals itself, upon closer examination, to be an array of connected scenes and vignettes. Across more than five hundred postcards, each one portraying a distinct slice of idealized Americana (town squares, mountain highways, main streets and county seats), Opdyke's acerbic, emotionally jarring alterations gradually become evident. In this prophetic refashioning, forests are aflame, tornadoes torque from one card into the next, a steamboat gets swallowed up whole by some sort of new megafauna, frogs fall like Biblical hail from the sky. The human responses form a cacophony of desires and demands, panic and denial. Biplanes trail banners urging Repent Now!, others insist Legislative Action Would Be Premature, while still others advertise seats on an actual Ark. The book 'This Land' affords readers a closer and closer viewing of Opdyke's devastatingly sardonic take on our impending ecological future, one in turn enlivened by Lawrence Weschler's vividly sly blend of artist profile and critical interpretation.