In BADLANDS, Schroeder’s photographs of empty and seemingly empty and presumed-to-be-empty-but-really-not-empty spaces (including the eponymous holy territory that is now held by South Dakota) also enact Keats’ valuing of doubt, question, mystery. What are these spaces for, the photographs seem to ask. What do they withhold from us? How can we know them? The photographs refuse ‘knowing’ as a rubric, to some extent, leaving us with the strangeness of objects-as-themselves.
Schroeder’s eye is intent on refocusing: a landscape photograph appears to be deserted, until the tiny upright bodies of tourists appear, marking it both occupied (in several senses) and immense. His photographs ask us to reconsider what is important, what is significant, and what is visible. They say, you think you see the important thing here, but you don’t. Look again. This is Schroeder’s “being in uncertainty”.
