Loitering, defined as idly standing without clear purpose, has been criminalized in America since the 1600s. Rooted in the English Poor Laws of the 16th century, these laws were carried to the New World, often targeting the poor and marginalized. Today, loitering remains a punishable offense in North America, raising questions about whether lacking purpose should be criminalized. 

Loitering gathers people, yet the law seeks to disperse them. However, community emerges from such gatherings, giving meaning to the purposeless. Without purpose, there is no direction; without direction, we loiter. This reflects a society that punishes rather than heals, perpetuating a cycle of social fragmentation. To lack purpose makes one both easily controlled and easily discarded. 

Through photography, I embrace purposelessness, resisting societal expectations. These images reject the chase for meaning, existing instead as deconstructed sentences—photographs loitering within a book, waiting to be shaped by a world conditioned to seek purpose.