David Billet + Ian Kline, 2017

This collaborative project, supported by the Jan Meyer Traveling Fellowship, was made during a two month road trip from Pennsylvania to Texas during the Summer of 2017. We went into this trip with our main interest being Texas and its representation to the two of us. We set out, interested in a larger understanding of masculinity, specifically in relationship to a current political climate where the shoot first, ask questions later, mentality has been resurrected. The two of us had never been to Texas prior to this trip. We had only heard the stories of this place and the men who have wandered this western landscape from our older relatives, western films, and literature. We wanted to look for ourselves to see what it meant to us to be a man in America today. The two of us wanted to see, as singular people and as partners, where we fit into this landscape that held so much influence to our understanding and our elders understanding of masculinity, America, and life.