The North American frontier is a persistent symbol of romance, revolution, escape, and freedom. At the same time, it is a deeply masculine myth—cowboys, bandits, Beat poets. Photographer Justine Kurland reclaims this space with her now-iconic series of images depicting teenage girls, taken between 1997 and 2002 on the roads of the American wilderness. “In my direction, the girls are an army of youth resisting patriarchal ideals,” Kurland states. She portrays the girls as fearless and free, tender and fierce. They hunt and explore, braid each other’s hair, and swim in sunlit pools—paying no attention to the camera (or the viewer). Their world is both unordered and utopian, a paradise in wild places just beyond the degraded infrastructure and ideas. Two decades later, the series continues to resonate, published here in its entirety and including newly discovered, unpublished images.

Pages: 160, Publication Year: 0812, Dimensions: 21.6x21.6cm