Instagram's @historycritic and Toxic Collecting
"Toxic People," "Toxic Places," and "Toxic Periods" are collages I assembled mostly from L.A. Public Library's online photography collections. This digital database is fully public, searchable, and compiles several image sets: Shades of L.A., the Herald Examiner (a defunct Hearst paper, yes that Hearst), the Valley Times, etc. My inspiration for doing this research began with an everyday practice I initiated as a resolution for the New Year, 1 January 2018. My dissertation project engages with methodologies from the New Sensory History.