Postcards from the s[ub]lime presents four oversized postcards from two earlier projects, Toxic Vernacular and River Vernacular, along with three new cards from the Delaware River Sojourn 2004 and an image of the Hoosic River as it flows through North Adams.

These postcards frame our ongoing investigation into disparities between an idealized American landscape and the social and natural histories buried behind the pretty pictures.
The photographic images are digitally manipulated to mimic the hand-colored look of early postcards.

For the back of each “card,” we construct a fictitious tourist narrative and a brief interpretive text. The latter delivers historical and scientific information about the sites, highlighting any environmental degradation and industrial histories. The former narratives suggest how the sites are experienced in the “vernacular” by local residents, business people or those just passing through. These postcards recast the disconnect between marketing the sublime, romanticized landscape and exposing the actual conflicted histories of these sites.