Traveling across the US, the French photographer Emmanuel Georges went in search of the remains of the American dream. Using a large-format camera and a documentary-style approach, Georges expresses a finely tuned feeling for the poetry unique to these places. The result is a kind of photographic road trip of more than 12,000 miles: from Detroit, the former capital of the automobile industry, to Butte, Montana, once a mining city and now half-deserted; through the Rust Belt from Pennsylvania to Arkansas, formerly flourishing cities tell the story of the disappearance of an economic boom.
Georges’ recurring motifs—decaying façades of industrial buildings, garages, motels, movie theaters—become iconic images of American urban landscapes. Profoundly permeated by melancholy, the empty streets, old cars and abandoned gas stations are testimony to the end of the American dream.
