“I was inspired to take these photos while drifting around America in 2012 with my then-wife, who was battling mental illness. After three and a half years of living this drifter’s lifestyle I went through a traumatic divorce, my wife by that point having begun to recover. At the end of 2014, having thrown away all that I knew and essentially become a blank slate, I challenged myself to return to the place where I had spent some of my darkest days in order to overcome my past and reclaim my identity.

Facing my subjects with a camera lens, I shared in their dignity, freedom, and irrationality, and was thus able to reexamine my own yearnings and aspirations. In doing so, I worked at regaining ownership of my emotions.”

― Tetsuya Kusu, American Monuments — 2014. (Published Zen Photo Gallery — Available through shashasha.co).