In Living Trust, his new monograph, published by Loose Joints, the artist explores white American privilege through a photo series that, not wanting to point fingers at individuals, uses models to examine the manners, gestures, and behaviours that perpetuate inequality. “I knew, intrinsically, we weren’t supposed to talk about it. It’s an uncomfortable feeling,” he says. Social classes, privileges, inequality… these are words that bother most people. But perhaps that’s why it’s even more necessary to talk about them openly and publicly. Buck Ellison has been willing to do it.

Aiming to translate somehow the prose of authors like Jane Austen, John Dos Passos, Edith Wharton, or Virginia Woolf into a photographic language, the artist has created a visual narration that speaks about a universal problem: wealth and assets are not fairly distributed but concentrated in the hands of the few. Now, we speak with him about his new book, whiteness, privilege and inequality in the US and around the world.