American photographer Larry Sultan's series, The Valley, focuses on the San Fernando Valley, where he grew up, and addresses the use of ordinary homes as sets for pornographic films. In Sultan's large-scale color photographs, mundane objects (a roll of paper towels, a stack of dirty dishes) take on new significance, and suburban life becomes a symbol-laden backdrop. The project investigates the meaning of home and questions why the ideal of middle-class domesticity lends itself to this curious form of cultural appropriation.
This project is somewhat connected to Sultan's previous project, "Pictures from Home," in which the photographs revolve around the concept of home as one of the pillars of the family.