The space between the levee and the river is a forgotten zone— transitions marked mostly by regular cycles of flooding and changes of season. At first encounter this place seems inhospitable— made more so because of its proximity and entanglement with its industrial and toxic histories. This is a landscape of erasures and deeply hidden histories. I wander in these damaged woods, where remnants of 20th century industrial production are being swallowed by the earth. Mounds of residue from coal production, stone pilings that stand like sentinels that are part of a distant industrial past, and the demarcations of vegetation where emergence and decay find balance, all mark this territory. This segment along the Mississippi River was once a significant hub of industrial and transport activity. Residing directly across the river from St. Louis Missouri, the Village of Monsanto, Illinois was incorporated in 1926 to escape environmental regulatory controls. The company town was renamed Sauget, Illinois in 1968 after its first mayor. To date, the mayor’s office has continuously been occupied by a member of the Sauget family. The levee that protects this renegade and ravaged community of strip clubs and chemical plants, stands in parallel to one of the remaining Railroad lines that skirt the region. It is through the many threads of infrastructure that I explore. These are the remains of commerce, industry, and deeply buried environmental conditions that overlap deep in these fragile woods where no one looks. Occasionally a hunter will set up camp in these woods. Photography is the ideal medium to explore this landscape, in which the marks of human intervention are hidden in plain sight. Working throughout this territory, I continue to learn how to look, and how to bear witness to what is not easily seen. A photograph can be shrewd in its deception; it can appear to operate as a neutral document with unbiased perspective while simultaneously expressing individual and acute observations. This paradoxical condition calls attention to expectations and opens questions about what we think we believe. I use this duality embedded in the medium as a voice of activism to address the social inequities and environmental precarities of our time. While my photographs might seem quiet, with attention to aesthetic balance, I aim for my work to convey something akin to persistent irritation. Here is a view that does not quit and finally implores notice.