Matt Rahner began documenting the dismantling of roughly a four-block section of Kansas City’s Wendell Phillips neighborhood—acquired by the city via eminent domain—in the fall of 2012. Forty-three households were displaced, some forcibly, to make room in the predominantly African American area for a new police station and crime lab.

Rahner’s photographs, along with objects and ephemera from the vacated homes and lots, are featured in the installation Eminent Domain on display in the Central Library through May 31, 2015. He discusses his effort to illuminate what he says are “the repercussions and reality of a power construct that allows one entity to forcefully and legally relocate others against their will.”

Rahner is an assistant professor of art at Missouri Valley College in Marshall, Missouri.