--- title: Phil Bergerson’s Shards of America | TIME description: Photographer Phil Bergerson speaks about his photographs of America. canonical: https://time.com/video/RESvKhfo/ og:title: Phil Bergerson’s Shards of America og:description: Photographer Phil Bergerson speaks about his photographs of America. og:url: https://time.com/video/RESvKhfo/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/RESvKhfo/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Phil Bergerson’s Shards of America twitter:description: Photographer Phil Bergerson speaks about his photographs of America. twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/RESvKhfo/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # Phil Bergerson’s Shards of America > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: Phil Bergerson’s Shards of America [Watch (HLS stream): Phil Bergerson’s Shards of America](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/RESvKhfo.m3u8) (4:16)  _Published 2011-06-30. Photographer Phil Bergerson speaks about his photographs of America._ --- Jul 27, 2023 3:14 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Behind the Scenes with Photographer Andrew Moore on America](/video/yxa7kqyu/) ### Behind the Scenes with Photographer Andrew Moore on America [10 Questions for Phil Jackson](/video/LGEbkssG/) ### 10 Questions for Phil Jackson [Phil Robertson Interview](/video/HGYUVYQv/) ### Phil Robertson Interview --- ## Transcript Hi, my name is Phil Bergerson. I am a photographer from Toronto, Canada and about 20 years ago I began photographing in the United States. I called my first book Shards of America because I love the way that the word shards held the idea of the anthropologist, in that I often feel myself being the collector of those shards, those messages from various people, unknown people, and trying to bring them together and form some vessel that holds the totality of what I'm perceiving is America. So I would take these trips and walk the streets of every little town I would come to. The photographs that I was actually drawn toward were showing a a wrinkle in the society that is. There is an undercurrent that was rather sad and demonstrated the deterioration of the society and culture. There's that great questioning of what the family is like now. I have a photograph of a ceramic family mother, a husband, wife and child And in the context is decaying. The ceramic quality is breaking apart and is very much representative of the way things are going within the family structure. So much of our American society, is built on, the producing of very slick things. And, what I realized quickly was so many of the things that I was interested in spoke, sort of a throwback to another time, a, a gentler time. There's a photograph of a sign by the owner who has had to close the shop. And he's apologizing for having to go off and have heart surgery. And again, it's the warmth of the people who are attached to these places that I read through their signs, or their presentations, their displays. So there are a lot of values, family values, social values that I come upon. One of them is a picture from Florida in front of the person's house. They have two colonnades. The only thing is that they're only about three feet high, and it just was the epitome of trying to keep up with the Jonses'. I mean they can't afford even to have full scale columns, but they have done their best. One of the recurring themes that I'm photographing is Jesus. The presence of Jesus. I don't think there is any other icon like Him. People look to him to be the, the savior. And yet, the representation of Jesus is really a deteriorating image. I'm working on a new book. One of the choice photographs from that book is a sign and it says, let me just quote it here. What on earth are you doing? Another one says, if I found a place, that was mine, I would keep it. And that, really resonated with me, about the American dream, if the, the cornerstone of American dream is, having. A home. So many people are unable to have that and all this person wanted is a place. Any place. What I'm starting to realize is that I now can use A sequence of photographs that speak about humanity in general, something about humanity. In that there's something in the undercurrent, that sadness, that is there. The struggle that is there, that is within us all. 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