Joseph Rushmore

Which line the Demon? Whose hand is this?

New work for @newyorkermag The New Faces of Christian Nationalism; written by @raaachmonroe Thank you to @gabfarina for the much needed support and guidance on this piece

ice out of austin; national strike

national guard d.c.

Broken heart don’t feel so bad, you ain’t got half of what you thought you had

Which line the Demon?

Thank you to @magnumfoundation for the support in making this work. ——————————- Things I remember from january 6, 2021; I remember tears, I remember fog and gas; the steps, in the violence I remember being stunned at the sight of a loved one’s  living ghost, I remember echoes, I entered an era of delays.  Five years later I was with many of those same people I had photographed storming the capitol, a small group of the formerly incarcerated rioters, their supporters and a few j6 groupies who couldn’t stop apologizing for not having been there themselves. Five years earlier we had walked together on those steps, crawled through those broken windows and now we walked together again and I saw that I suffered from the same malady that many of them suffered, it came from different sources, but we had all contracted an illness on jan 6. We were all far too obsessed with what we had been a part of and we all felt very real pains from it, but all of us had stared into the eyes of a fucked up dark glory for too long. You could glimpse those eyes and come away alright, but if you kept looking, and we had kept looking, then your soul was gonna get burned, and ours for sure got burned. On this fifth anniversary they did not lay flowers upon the earth, instead, they stuck the stems into the ground so they stood up vertically, some of the flowers were placed into dead bushes so the bright summer colors flashed against the grey brown flora. They made a garden rather than a memorial. They laid tender words of prayer, shed tears and sang quietly. They gathered around Mickey, ashli babbits mother, and they held the parent who really only wanted to be held by her dead daughter.  The flowers standing up on end appearing as if they were growing, not in memory, but in direct living action in the name of ashli were, despite appearances, still only a symbol, because, of course, they too were dead. They had been bought at the corner store or flower shop that morning, their stems cut and, even though you couldn’t see it just yet, they were withering. This garden was empty, not alive, not worthy of remembrance, not anything, just nothing. (Continued in comments)

Acid Christ dirt road blue

count every fraction of moment, learn the eternity it takes for a tear to fall from your cheek to the ground, one million prayers said in your next breath, shut your eyes, whisper, lay your hand on your heart Heavenly my heavenly heavenly heavenly, son of god, melody of time, swallow death, from your holy wounded hands. blood pours from his mouth, “did you not notice that the universe of tectonic sadness took over the world long ago? Did you think you were still living? You are dead. and the god of comfort has forgotten your name.”

I photographed and wrote a piece about Charlie Kirk’s funeral for High Country News. I tried to describe the undercurrent of paranoiac false realities and fear that ran just below the surface of spectacle and god. I’m not there yet, but there seems soon. I saw grief that was genuine and real, but when I asked about grief, I seemed to only get answers in the definition of vengeance. one night I saw a red banner covering the sky, blocking the stars horizon to horizon, I thought I would faint, but the wind was making very long, slow ripples in the fabric and I needed to count them before the sun came up, I tried, but there was no number. ——————————————————— Below is an excerpt from the piece; visit the link in my bio for more. ——————————————————— “I took the same picture over and over again. I saw it everywhere: a woman alone with a toddler in her arms, looking terrified as the men around her screamed about a world that had lost the face of God, a world in which liberals want your babies dead, a world in which our souls are being corrupted by people crossing borders. After a while, I couldn’t stop seeing those women — they were everywhere, at night at the vigil, alone under the hot sun in a parking lot, surrounded by men who ignored them, offering no comfort or support as they proclaimed the holiness that was Charlie Kirk. Underneath it all, I saw a loneliness that overwhelmed the entire weekend.” —————————————————— This work was produced with support from @magnumfoundation for @highcountrynews , thank you @bearguerra , @kateschimel , Emma and Melissa for your essential support throughout.

The third precinct on fire: pure freedom in a life that feels like yesterday and a lifetime ago.

We were allowed a vision, a brief glimpse at what could be. Minneapolis five years ago. Mourning mourning mourning