THE LOCAL ORDNANCE PROJECT

Ordnance is military hardware - mortars, cannons, howitzers, tanks, missle launchers.
Discarded artillery decorates the American landscape.
This photographic study was incited by the presence of a cannon that commands a
residential intersection in Richmond Heights, Missouri. I passed this gun hundreds
of times before I noticed it. The cannon does not mark a historic site or a veteran’s
hall. I wondered if similar situations existed elsewhere. They do. Cannons often
mark battery positions on historic sites. Some of the guns pictured were created
for amusement and ornamentation. Many field pieces and armored vehicles were
placed by warriors as memorials to honor fallen comrades. These photographs intend
no disrespect for those who answered the call of duty in service to their country.
Nor do they seek to glorify war.
This is an ongoing documentary landscape project, originally concocted to provide
a focus and destination for personal work while travelling on assignment.
I did not envision a project with a national scope. Now my mission is to fill the map
with a piece of ordnance from each state in the lower 48.
The journey has become the destination.

Michael DeFilippo