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Shabtai Pinchevsky

Shabtai Pinchevsky

The Jefferson Grid






For the last year I’ve been collecting satellite images of parcels, neighborhoods, plots and towns, all part of the same grid that defines the land distribution in most of the US territories. The Public Land Survey System was proposed by Thomas Jefferson at the end of the 18th century, during the expansion of the US westward. It was an innovative method to divide and sell the ownership of the large expanses of newly acquired and unknown territories. More than 200 years later, the grid still defines the geography and landscape of most of midwest and western US.
- 2016


https://www.instagram.com/the.jefferson.grid/

Even When You Go Off the Grid, You Might Still Be On It, New York Times, August 26, 2015:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/summer-of-science-2015/latest/jefferson-grid

Orbital View: Where’d You Go, Jefferson Grid?, Chris Bodenner, The Atlantic Magazine, December 17, 2015:
https://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2015/12/orbital-view-whered-you-go-jefferson-grid/421140/

Phases Magazine:
https://www.phasesmag.com/shabtai-pinchevsky/the-jefferson-grid/



INFO ︎︎︎

Shabtai Pinchevsky is a photographer and digital media artist currently based in New York. In his creative practice, Pinchevsky uses digital tools to examine archival photographic materials and their relations to geographies of conflict and displacement. His practice is deeply engaged with issues of social justice, human rights, and anti-colonialism, and their application in art and media. Pinchevsky works with 3D modeling, mapping, internet-based art, and more, to investigate the political complications of the photographic medium, while reflecting on his own implications within the field.