Unsettled | Xavier Tavera

Xavier Tavera’s Unsettled begins with the civil unrest that shook Minneapolis and the nation in January 2026. In vivid street scenes, he depicts protesters, state perpetrators of violence, and the material traces of urban upheaval.

These documentary images are given an unexpected context: Tavera mounts them onto photographs of pastoral Minnesota landscapes that he has made over the past decade, across all four seasons. The quiet, expansive vistas visually outweigh the urgency and noise of the streets, casting the events of the siege against an enduring, seemingly tranquil ground.

Across the series, Tavera layers his artistic and personal experiences onto broader questions drawn from the history of photography and the land, particularly the role photography has played in establishing standard myths of equilibrium found in the interior Midwest.