Omen: Phantasmagoria at the FSA Archive: 1935-1942

“Omen” reexamines the Farm Security Administration’s photographic archive, revealing a lesser-known narrative that challenges traditional views of American history.  This book’s visual sequence breaks norms, creatively cropping images from the Farm Security Administration archives (1935-1944) at the New York Public Library. Lucy Ives, the acclaimed American writer and poet, skilfully penned Omen’s captivating text. Ives has firmly established herself as a leading voice in the contemporary literary world, with numerous critically acclaimed publications to her name. Chasing the ghost, the traces of oblivion, and the echoes of what was and no longer is, the book *Omen* is a revision and reframing of a fraction of the photographic archive of the Farm Security Administration (1935- 1944), hosted at the New York Public Library. That program was one of the milestones of modern documentary photography, instrumental in constructing a hegemonic narrative; one mainly about triumph against adve