Lakeside #5

Assembly and Gnomic Book present “Lakeside” by Virginia-based photographer, Shane Rocheleau. This NFT collection tackles the historical contradictions of white supremacy as they manifest in present day suburban Virginia. The images metaphorically and distinctly connect the people and landscapes in Rocheleau’s home of Lakeside, VA with the current state of America. Rocheleau grew up knowing, liking and spending time with his neighbors. Now, he looks askance at too many of them, and too many return the gesture—one that hurts. Physical communities from the micro to the macro are disintegrating. In “Lakeside” Rocheleau shows that we must contend with and embrace truth, American flaws and injustices, communal suffering, the humanity of all persons, and each other. We must believe that there is a possibility for redemption, true community, and love with an honest reckoning. “Lakeside” is a representation of spaces initially built to feign the “American Exceptionalism” written to redact America’s oppugnant reality. Lakeside, VA is also a place with 11,000 people doing the best they can, ugly and beautiful things alike, while drowning in the reality that dreaming gets far less than its promise.

Shane Rocheleau is an American photographer whose work confronts the endemic position of toxic masculinity and white supremacy within the American experience. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. Rocheleau’s three monographs are published by Gnomic Book and variously collected by the Museum of Modern Art, the Vogue Italia Collection, Fondazione Teatro Regio di Parma, and Tate Britain, amongst others.