“America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future.”
Issue 7 of SOUTHERN EXPOSURE focuses on origin stories and how they establish the preconditions that supports the motives of their creators. This issue is about the power of stories, even when they are lies, and how the lure of being able to refashion the raw materials of memory into something more aggrandizing and heroic, proves irresistible to those holding power. With imagery inspired by motifs of Soviet propaganda, neoclassicism, and the State Flag of Alabama (itself an intentional derivative of a Confederate Battle Flag), “Fatherland” explores the way the history is written and re-written to create a form of propaganda, and a means by which we we justify our worst instincts.
