Over the previous 13 years, I’ve been drawn to locations the place historical past is unfolding. I particularly needed to {photograph} what occurs when states and residents come into battle. The start line has at all times been to point out up. I don’t work with assistants, fixers or drivers. I don’t search particular entry or embedded preparations. I spend a whole lot of time wandering alone.
I initially considered these photos as belonging to separate initiatives outlined by their geography — Ukraine, Hong Kong, North Korea, Cuba, Egypt, america, amongst different locations. However the extra images I took, the extra they resisted that form of group. I grew to become extra serious about what these scenes had in widespread.
I frolicked in democracy actions that had been violently suppressed, revolutions that succeeded in overthrowing governments, avenue protests that channeled the vitality of 1000’s. The pictures started to kind a form of report of collective meeting, social upheaval, totalitarian management, surveillance, oppression and outright warfare. All totally different registers of the identical elementary wrestle: life in a worldwide period more and more formed by confrontations with authoritarian energy.
Some images are reminders of setbacks. However others recommend a path ahead: one fueled by anger, sure, but in addition by solidarity and hope.
Matthew Connors is an artist and pictures professor on the Massachusetts Faculty of Artwork and Design. These images come from his forthcoming monograph “The Axe Will Survive the Master” (2026), through SPBH Editions/MACK.
