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![Snow covered field with brick and limestone sign at entrance to Muskatatuck]()
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Muscatatuck (selected)
Muscatatuck was an institution for the developmentally disabled in southern Indiana that closed in early 2004 in response to claims of patient abuse. Fearing that the abandoned rural site could easily turn into a meth lab, the State of Indiana gave it to the National Guard, which now shares the facility with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Both use the compound as an urban terrorism training center.
In the late 1970s, I had visited Muscatatuck with my high school orchestra, to perform for the patients. In 2008, I returned and found a place, long kept from public view, momentarily bearing traces of its two lives—coexisting as both an institution for the mentally disabled and a military training camp.
In 2010, “Central Communications,” a photo projection based on this series, with text by Lisa Cohen, appeared in Sherry Milner and Ernest Larsen’s “State of Emergency,” with works by Walid Raad, Leslie Thornton, Martha Rosler, Mary Kelly, Allan Sekula, and Yvonne Rainer. (See Ernest Larsen, “Flying under the Radar: Notes on a Decade of Media Agitation,” Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media, No. 56, Fall 2014.)
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![New blue chairs and old decorative painting in classroom.]()
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![Display of military education material including brown bear and green sandbags]()
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![Light brick dormitory in snow]()
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![Blue interior with brown table]()
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![CPR kit in suitcase with pink dummy and green target]()
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![White trailers in snow]()
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![White room with two way mirrors for observation]()
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![Pink stands with cardboard signs in light brick hallway]()
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![Red brick building, dark leafless trees, white snow and dark slush puddles]()
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![Yellow wall with spoon and description of spoon plack for residents]()
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![Snow covered playground with wheelchair swing set.]()
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![Dark grey curtains with dark bed frame]()
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![Fake graffiti written in black and snow covered road with evergreen trees in back]()
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