Infrastructure: Highway Deconstructed

© Steven Benson - Image from the Infrastructure: Highway Deconstructed photography project © Steven Benson - Interested in the poetics of this image - two car carriers passing simultaneously. © Steven Benson - Under the new bridge a shadow falls across the fill dirt. View all images ↓
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This photoessay explores infrastructure from a creative perspective. I'm looking at the construction process as a subject about transformation. My engagement with the building of this highway is to transform and reinterpret the construction process.

Steven Benson - Artist Statement

 Infrastructure: Highway Deconstructed

      The altered landscape has been an integral element of my photographic practice. For the past nine-years, I’ve been creating images that explore the activities and artifacts associated with the process of transforming the landscape by the construction underway for an enormous highway infrastructure project. My goals are very different from anyone else working on the new I-4 highway running through Central Florida. The engineers and construction workers are focused on weight loads and distribution, gravity, traffic flow and water runoff. I’m exploring the construction process from a perspective of re-interpretation and transformation.     The aesthetic strategy I weave into the imagery would normally be associated with the way photographers have approached national parks like Yosemite or Yellowstone. I’m intrigued with the idea of producing images using rebar, concrete and dirt to create beautiful seductive photographs as a way to draw attention to the effects of our interaction with the land. Using aesthetics this way can function as a political statement to undermine the viewers expectations.  The complexity of the construction process is experienced as a Surreal undertaking and is included in the visual language of the photographs.       There are serious environmental considerations to include when designing an infrastructure project. The photographs are made in Florida but large construction projects that impact wetlands and animal migration are being built all over the world. Significant efforts are being made to address environmental concerns. The Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing, for example, now spans the 101 Freeway in Agoura Hills near Los Angeles. (Weather issues have pushed completion to sometime in 2026.)      I’m reminded of Margaret Bourke-White when she said, “... industrial forms were all the more beautiful because they were never designed to be beautiful. They had a simplicity of line that came from their direct application of purpose. Industry... had evolved an unconscious beauty – often a hidden beauty that was waiting to be discovered"            The process of making these photographs occur as collaborative activities with individuals I only know through the evidence of their actions. I incorporate the actions of others to recontextualize their effect on the land. I’m imagining a future where National Parks will be abandoned factories.  The film ‘Brazil’ comes to mind. 

 

© Steven Benson - Image from the Infrastructure: Highway Deconstructed photography project
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Interesting way to start 2026! The landscape feels apocalyptic. It is unusual to see the land transformed all the way to the horizon.

© Steven Benson - Interested in the poetics of this image - two car carriers passing simultaneously.
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Interested in the poetics of this image - two car carriers passing simultaneously.

© Steven Benson - Under the new bridge a shadow falls across the fill dirt.
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Under the new bridge a shadow falls across the fill dirt.

© Steven Benson - The reinforcement straps create a striking visual asking the viewer to forget this is a photograph of a construction site.
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The reinforcement straps create a striking visual asking the viewer to forget this is a photograph of a construction site.

© Steven Benson - This subject reminded me of a very unusual fossil.
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This subject reminded me of a very unusual fossil.

© Steven Benson - This location felt like a ritual site.
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This location felt like a ritual site.

© Steven Benson - Pipe pylons functioning as unintentional sculpture.
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Pipe pylons functioning as unintentional sculpture.

© Steven Benson - Image from the Infrastructure: Highway Deconstructed photography project
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Water management is an enormous issue as land is covered with concrete requires considerations of controlling water run-off and displacement.

© Steven Benson - Transforming a street light armature.
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Transforming a street light armature.

© Steven Benson - A broken water seal on a hydrant next to the construction site.
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A broken water seal on a hydrant next to the construction site.

© Steven Benson - Ground cover to reduce erosion.
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Ground cover to reduce erosion.

© Steven Benson - While I was composing this image the blue truck suddenly appeared.
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While I was composing this image the blue truck suddenly appeared.

© Steven Benson - So strange to find this storm drain segment in the altered landscape.
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So strange to find this storm drain segment in the altered landscape.

© Steven Benson - Wetland preservation is a vital element of infrastructure projects of this enormous scale.
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Wetland preservation is a vital element of infrastructure projects of this enormous scale.

© Steven Benson - Vultures in a wetland perched on palm trees that were damaged by hurricanes.
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Vultures in a wetland perched on palm trees that were damaged by hurricanes.

© Steven Benson - Shadows from pipe pylons.
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Shadows from pipe pylons.

© Steven Benson - Old highway removal.
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Old highway removal.

© Steven Benson - Interior of a culvert. Interesting to explore places we were never meant to see.
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Interior of a culvert. Interesting to explore places we were never meant to see.

© Steven Benson - Blue tarp to protect water pipes.
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Blue tarp to protect water pipes.

© Steven Benson - The unfinished sections of highway often appear as monumental (unintended) sculpture.
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The unfinished sections of highway often appear as monumental (unintended) sculpture.

Infrastructure: Highway Deconstructed by Steven Benson

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