browseHomeland by Nina Berman
Nina Berman (Photographer)
Capturing the culture of civic paranoia that took hold across the United States after the attacks of September 11, Berman took these photographs between 2001 and 2008, the very term ‘Homeland’ unfamiliar to her before George W Bush’s War on Terror.
“In my photographs, Homeland is where Air Force bombers entertain sunbathers on summer weekends; happy families step through the suburbs clutching anti-nuke pills...evangelial Christians dress in Afghan burqas; senior citizens become extras in a War On Terror script; and military recruitment spectacles transform children into would-be killers.
“There are simulation drills costing millions of dollars and involving thousands of participants: Islamic terrorists with nuclear bombs, Islamic terrorists hijacking planes, bioterrorists, chemical terrorists, school bus terrorists and shopping mall terrorists. There is even a camp for wayward youth to help them learn how to respond to terrorists… Rather than continuing to focus on the evidence of war it seemed important to show the fantasies of war.”