This body of work includes photographs from
the Fresh Kills landfill shortly before it closed in
March 2001. The site reopened temporarily as
a sorting ground for the rubble and refuse from
the World Trade Center which Wides photographed
at a salvage yard nearby. Once the largest
landfill in the world, Fresh Kills is located on
Staten Island at the edge of New York City.


The pictures explore the city’s polarities:
the brand names visible among the detritus
testify to the allure of their origin. Through
focal manipulations of light, Wides seeks to intensify
the visualization of these extremes, and to
dissolve it—debris turning to earth, evidence
of consumerism transforming into a version
of nature. As objects transition in and out of
recognition, questions surface about what is
real and what is invented.


While working, Wides was struck by the words of the
poet A.R. Ammons from his book, Garbage:
“garbage has to be the poem of our time
because garbage is spiritual, believable enough
to get our attention, getting in the way … what
else deflects us from the error of our illusionary
ways...”