PROJECT DEVELOPMENT GRANT
WINNER • Brandon Kapelow - Somewhere I Belong
JUROR • Gail Fletcher - The Guardian US
Cresta, 69, holds a photo of herself with her friend Dave Moller, who died by suicide in 2012. Cresta herself has also battled with periods of suicidal ideation.
Hunter Gossett, 19, worked at J&Y Auto with his friend Thane Morgan, a high school student who died by suicide in November 2021. As a survivor of multiple attempts, Gossett is too familiar with the challenge of suicide.
In 1994, the Catron county commission voted unanimously to pass a nonbinding resolution stating that every household should possess a firearm and ammunition for the purpose of home defense.
Ron, 68, is part of a four-generation ranching family and underwent several reconstructive surgeries following a suicide attempt. “It’s hard to look me in the eye, and it's hard for folks to deal with that without a shudder going down their back,” he says.
Of the four homes on this short stretch of road in Alma, N.M., part of Catron County, two had owners who died by suicide.
Cathy, 69, and Dennis, 75, relax with their support dog Ricky. Cathy has lost relatives to suicide and has survived several attempts. During a recent attempt, she reached out to a hotline for help, an experience she called “a fart in a windstorm. [The responder] was quite young, and I guess I was her first active caller,” she says.
The DWI (Driving While Intoxicated) Program in Reserve, Catron’s county seat, is one of the county’s only behavioral-health resources. Deborah Boyer, the clinic’s director and a suicide-loss survivor, sees firsthand the overlapping needs in addressing substance abuse and suicide prevention.
Craig Lang, 43, is a pastor, EMT, and head organizer for the Apache Creek Deaf & Youth Ranch, a Baptist summer camp for deaf and disabled young people. In each of his roles, Lang has had extensive exposure to the traumas of suicide.
Naomi Lang, 13, with her horse Duchess. Naomi’s father Craig was the closest EMT to the scene when Naomi was accidentally run over by a truck, requiring him to perform life-saving duties on his own daughter.
As a history buff, veteran, and a suicide-attempt survivor, Larry Iams, 74, maintains a careful relationship with his guns. Most of the time he keeps them locked up at a friend's house in Arizona so that they’re out of reach.
After student Thane Morgan’s suicide in November 2021, administrators at Quemado High School brought in mental-health professionals to help counsel students.
Brenda Johnston, 49, has lost five members of her family—including her younger brother—to suicide. “There’s people that still come and ask how he's doing,” she says. “That’s the hardest part. And they always try to ask why. I’m not going to say to suicide. To me it’s none of anybody’s business.”
Tristan Leyba, 16, worked with Morgan at J&Y Auto and received a farewell text from him the night that Morgan ended his life. Leyba and Morgan wore matching rings to signify their friendship.
Rusty Stewart, 47, a pastor at the First Baptist Church of Quemado, used to wear a gun on his hip that he described as his “backup plan.” After a suicide attempt, he was placed under observation at a hospital and told that “people who commit suicide go straight to hell,” he remembers.
Hayden Littleton, 18, was 8 years old when she lost her father, James to suicide. James Littleton was 40 years old when he died in 2012.
Jack Diamond, 84, stands at the cemetery in Gabriella, a western replica town built to stage historic-gunfight reenactments and serve as a set for movie productions.
Hilda Kellar, 73, is the mayor of Reserve and owner of K&B Timberworks, one of the region’s few remaining industrial employers. She has lost two family members to suicide, including her father, who struggled with chronic pain after an incident with falling timber.
Firearms on display at a local gun show. In 1994, the Catron county commission voted unanimously to pass a nonbinding resolution stating that every household should possess a firearm and ammunition for the purpose of home defense.
Vicki Shriver, 64, the Reserve district EMS medical chief, and her husband Mike Shriver, 70, a pastor and retired state policeman, have both witnessed the shortcomings in their community’s response to mental health crises.
The road to Sunflower Mesa, where a local teen attempted suicide in 2002. Some attempt survivors, like Amy Whetham, supervisor of the Glenwood Senior Center, experience a change in perspective. “I started being more open about being bipolar, which seemed to help a lot,” she says.
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My first exposure to suicide came at age 8, when my father made the first of several attempts to end his life. His fatal attempt came five years later, and I’ve been invested in the issue ever since. Growing up in Wyoming, I learned that suicide was an inescapable part of life in the American West. A number of subsequent suicides and attempts among my closest friends and family forced me to question why these tragedies were so commonplace in my beloved corner of the world.
Suicide is an epidemic that is geographically-linked and at its deadliest in the West, with all of the most severely impacted states (Wyoming, Alaska, Colorado, Montana, and New Mexico) lying across the 100th meridian. These are the same Western states in which I grew up - the places that my family still call home - and I want to produce work that examines the relationship between these acts of self-violence and the environments in which they occur. How does the land and its history influence the psychology of its occupants? How do cultural themes inspired by Manifest Destiny and Rugged Individualism continue to influence the mental health crisis ravaging the West?
Somewhere I Belong is an ongoing survey of the American West that seeks to explore these questions through the images and stories of the individuals most impacted by the suicide epidemic - loss survivors, attempt survivors, and their immediate families. The project's first chapter was published in TIME and focused on Catron County, New Mexico, which had the highest suicide rate of any county in the contiguous U.S. during the decade between 2010-2020.
When I was young, a mentor taught me to harness the emotions surrounding my loss by reaching out and opening myself to others. Social connection and its absence lie at the heart of this issue. By creating space for survivors to tell their stories, this project seeks to foster opportunities for hope and connection through shared experiences.
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It was a rewarding and enlightening experience to review submissions to CENTER’s Project Development Grant. I admired the range of projects and the many forms of visual expression. Ultimately, I selected Brandon Kapelow’ as the recipient of the grant to continue his project Somewhere I Belong on the suicide epidemic in the American West, for his layered and sensitive representation of the topic.
The ongoing project is a much-needed interrogation of the harsh and devastating realities of a mental health crisis plaguing the region. I appreciate Kapelow’s efforts to create an outlet where survivors and loved ones can share their pain and grief and help one another heal from tragedy.
This year saw additional entries centered around mental health as well as entries focused on historical injustice, queer identity, family bonds, and our relationship with the natural world. I was most drawn to affecting and sensitive work that surprised me whether it was work that highlighted an underrepresented topic or works that presented a new way of visualizing a topic well known.
The project statement was equally as important as the work attached to it. It was necessary for statements to be clear and not too wide sweeping. I also found it essential for statements to note intentions to continue the project being that the proposals were for a development grant. Importantly, Kapelow mentions his project is ongoing, and I look forward to seeing his additional chapters of Somewhere I Belong and how other projects develop.
- Gail Fletcher • Photo Editor, The Guardian US
About the Artist
Brandon Kapelow is a visual artist from Wyoming whose credits span work as a director, photographer, and cinematographer. His focus is on exploring stories centered on real people and the challenges they face through their unique histories and cultures. As a suicide loss survivor from an early age, Brandon has a passion for exploring topics related to mental health. Outside of his creative practice, Brandon is a peer-support facilitator for SOLACE and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
Brandon’s films have screened at domestic and international festivals such as the Academy and BAFTA-qualifying Los Angeles Short Film Festival, Atlanta Film Festival, and Aesthetica Short Film Festival. He is currently in production on a feature documentary exploring the use of psychedelic-assisted therapies in treating workplace traumas among first responders.
As a photographer, Brandon's ongoing body of work, Somewhere I Belong, focuses on the issue of suicide in the American West, which for decades has experienced the nation's highest rates of suicide death. His writing and images from the series were published in Time Magazine. Brandon’s work has been featured in Adweek, Billboard, Booooooom, Complex, Engadget, The Fader, NPR, Pitchfork, and Vice.
Based between LA, Vancouver, and Wyoming, Brandon's home is on the road - inspired by changing landscapes and the people that inhabit them.
brandonkapelow.com