Status: Pre-production
Across the vast expanse of the United States, the legacy of genocide, slavery, and oppression is not confined to history books, it is etched into the landscape itself. Landscapes across ‘the land of the free’ bear witness to this dark history through their place names. Dead Negro Creek, Mulatto Bayou, Sq*** Tit, Wetback Tank, Savage Lake, Chinaman Hat, these names act as linguistic monuments to a colonial mindset that once renamed and reshaped an entire continent.
Atlas of Derogatory Landscapes is a multidisciplinary project by Ruben Hamelink that exposes the hidden violence embedded in America’s geography. Through photography, cartography, design, archival research, and text, the project traces how white supremacy and colonial ideologies became normalized within language and maps, revealing their persistent influence on collective memory and identity.
In collaboration with local researchers, journalists, and artists, the project brings forward the voices of communities directly impacted by these names. Their stories form a counter-archive that challenges the authority of traditional atlases and invites reflection on how naming – once a colonial act – can become a tool for decolonization.
Credits
Photographer & Project initiator: Ruben Hamelink
Advisor & Community outreach: Jessica Lambert
Cartographer & Data visualization: Bert Spaan
With in kind support from: The Aftermath Project, Fonds Anna Cornelis, Stichting Oog op de Natuur, Fonds Bijzondere Journalistieke Projecten, De Volkskrant.
