Mia went to bed half an hour ago. The TV’s still on. I turn off the sound and drift off. Images start to flicker. I see my hands on the steering wheel and Mike standing by the side of the road.
Over the past three years, I’ve been traveling across the United States. Each morning I decided where I wanted to end up that night, then I set out. I drove through towns that
don’t appear on the map and listened to the radio. Twenty-six years ago, my parents did the same thing. Back then, they went to a rodeo and conceived me in Monument Valley.
They rode through the canyon with Natives, and they told me about it. I’ve wanted to go there ever since. Today, I’m driving the same roads as they did. Pharmacy, Liquor Store, Dollar General. I meet people who seem as lost as I am. Some I stay with for days, others disappear after a photograph.
I wake up, it’s half past four. The street outside is dark, only my light is still on. The gray map on the screen has turned red. If he really takes Virginia, he won’t need Pennsylvania. I turn up the volume. The anchor says “It’s not looking good.” In a few hours there’ll be pictures of people crying in blue shirts and others cheering in red hats. Somewhere in America, the sun is setting. I turn off the TV and go to bed.
Artist Bios
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Valentin Goppel was born in 2000 in Regensburg, Germany. Since 2019, he has been studying documentary photography in Hannover. In his work, he approaches broad societal issues by reflecting on his own experience. The work thus serves as a subjective report, combining document and expression.
For his first major project “Between the Years,” Valentin photographed friends and acquaintances in both found scenes and arranged portraits, trying to capture the diffused feelings of growing up in times of the pandemic. The work was published as a photobook in 2024 by British publisher GOST. It won the Leica Oskar Barnack Newcomer Award and the Visa pour L’image Urban Newcomer Grant.
Since 2023, Valentin has been working on his second major project “False Prophet Radio,” a personal exploration of contemporary America. Traveling alone through the United States, he draws from his own sense of displacement to construct a portrait of today’s America.
Organizations
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For 50 years, Leica Galleries across the globe have existed as more than mere exhibition spaces. They are places for imagination, dialogue, and connection. Since the first Leica Gallery opened in Wetzlar in 1976, a global network of Leica Galleries has grown across continents. These galleries are united by the belief that images have the power to move people and change perspectives. The Leica Galleries celebrate the art of seeing and the power of photography. They have been bringing cultures, generations, and stories together, spanning borders, for half a century—reinforcing the idea that true photography is timeless and that seeing is still a universal language.
