Christian Patterson in Making Room
I’m a big fan of Christian’s work and was thrilled to see some of his new work alongside his interview in Making Room. Christian talks in some depth about his ongoing project “Out There,” an exploration of the landscape connected with a series of murders committed by a Nebraska teenager in the 1950s.
When I started following my map, I found things that I never imagined I would find nearly fifty years after the murders took place. There are very few things that remain, and they are very hard to find, but I found some very interesting things that will show up in the photographs. My research and imagination are helping me to fill in the blanks.
I had sort of assumed that “Out There” was sort of just what it sounded like — I had no idea that Christian had plotted out a very specific course based on the route the killer and his girlfriend took while on the lamb. I can’t really overstate power this concept lends to what are already incredibly rich images — one in particular reminds me of a famous Robert Frost poem. I’m sure you know the one.