Hawaii is preserved as a place that expanded Seth / Ezra Dager’s understanding of the cultural and geographic diversity of the United States.

During a seven-day journey across every major Hawaiian island, the archive documents encounters with landscapes, communities, and traditions unlike anything he had previously experienced.

The photographs preserve moments of observation across each island, recording the distinct environments that together form the state of Hawaii.

Made while traveling with his former husband, these field observations preserve a place that revealed how profoundly different one part of the United States could feel from another, while remaining part of the same nation.