Maya Mercer: The Parochial Segments

A study of youth culture in Yuba County, California and the region's history of gold, colonization and Indigenous erasure

Between 2012 and 2021, photographer Maya Mercer exiled herself to Northern California where she explored the local history and the current conditions of Yuba County. Like all of the United States, Yuba County originally belonged to Indigenous peoples; during colonization, entire communities were attacked by gold prospectors and driven off their land. In The Parochial Segments, Mercer directs her young protagonists in a series of cine-inspired photographs. Overlaid with text from the Yuba County archives, the images are stained by a permeating red hue reflective of the arid earth disturbed by miners' greed during the Gold Rush and today's extreme droughts brought on by climate change. Mercer nods to the precariousness of youth and the economic, social isolation of rural Far West America, and issues them a crucial warning: "Children, listen to me; hurry and get out of the burning house."