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assembling of the first atomic weapons, Buffalo and Niagara Falls are strewn with radioactive hot spots. Wayne Disposal, in Belleville, Michigan, is a commercial waste landfill, where other states dump their hazardous waste. It is one of nineteen active hazardous waste sites in the country. For the past three-and-a-half years, Linder has been exploring these American landscapes, attempting to uncover their toxic history. As part
of her project, she draws facsimiles of official documents that trace this dark past just below the surface. The act of drawing itself becomes a means of excavation, finding proof, following the spiral. Linder also catalogues her observations of these sites with intimate drawings made sitting in her car for hours, bearing witness at a safer distance. The drawings of the Belleville site were created on location during Linder’s
2016 Institute for the Humanities residency. Large scale charcoal rubbings of the grounds also serve as visual artifacts. Through the meticulous handdrawn network of her marks, Linder investigates the imprints and trappings of both human and manufactured experience, how each place and piece of information is connected, overlapping, and interwoven.