STEPH GARCIA, 2021

They Began to Understand...

Translated into Spanish, Lao, Thai, Mandarin, Vietnamese, and Khmer, side one of They Began to Understand... seeks to draw attention to the historic lack of Superfund materials translated into languages spoken by the primary communities who fish in the river, and to provide an entry point into a conversation from which those communities have largely been excluded. Building off of this, side two documents the change in the Superfund Site over time, through archival images and photos taken in April 2021 and July 2021 (duration of the project), a visual change that, at times, needs no words.