modelos in the wild (2020 onwards) began as a personal, meditative, grieving practice. discovering and photographing littered modelo cans, and sometimes related modelo refuse, became a method of and metaphor for dedicating minutes to one who has been lost, and searching for them wherever one goes.

 

in the same way that a father, at his best, might be a source of guidance and stability to his child, so has been the ubiquitious and overlooked scattering of these cans to me. in the same way that a father might try to teach his daughter, over perhaps the first and only beer they might share, about absurdly believing in a way through the darkest parts of her life, here are crushed, flattened, shot-gunned sewer stars in the anthropocene, reminding me that coping has a past and a future. the neanderthals cried, the stars we see tonight died years ago. we will live and die and make our way through it all.

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the project has become participatory over the years, with modelos coming in from philly, new york, and providence, in addition to d.c. to contribute, contact @gracemdewitt or grace(dot)marie(dot)dewitt@gmail(dot).com.

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thank you nellie, rebecca, david, francisco, jill, and raj.

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p.s. hilariously, when i launched this page (July 2026), i learned that there are other "modelos in the wild" projects out there, using exactly the same name. i salute these projects in full. i may have named mine differently if i had known these were going on six years ago... but also, maybe not.