Text and Image
What could be the relation of text to image in my work?
Would something similar like ‘The Sweet Flypaper of Life’ work for my own work?
What about the autonomy of the images?
Do I need text at all?
What other options do I have - audio, video?
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
wonderful pasta
Last week Ian mentioned the idea of writing on the photograph. This is an interesting example for text and / in / on image by Barbara Astman, I saw in a gallery in NYC.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Project Description
South Providence, Rhode Island 2009
When Walker Evans and James Agee traveled across the country in 1936 to take photographs for their landmark book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men they inspired future generations of photographers to follow their example. Now, in 2009, during what may come to be known as our generation’s version of the Great Depression, I would like to make a similar investigation, albeit one more geographically confined and focused. An excursion to document and portray the disrupted lives of the residents of one particular urban neighborhood: South Providence, Rhode Island.
This excursion will explore ideas about identity, image and class in 21st Century America. Because I am a photographer I will express these ideas visually. Because I am a German, I will bring a fresh perspective from a more detached point of view. Because I lived and travelled in India and the Republic of Georgia I have seen and responded to different levels of crushing poverty before. Because I am interested in photojournalistic work and I am always eager to learn about people, and how they represent and express the history, culture, social, and political situation of their country I will bring empathy. This is not the first time I have made such a journey.
In 2007 I spent two months in the Republic of Georgia documenting the diverse lifestyle of contemporary Georgian youth. The result of that effort was a book of 125 photographs depicting the faces, gestures, landscape, and architecture of a young, emergent democracy. Georgia, located at the dividing line between Europe and Asia with deep roots in the Caucasus, has been a representative democracy since 1991 but faces severe problems with its neighbor Russia and its separatist regions Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Today’s young people in Georgia are torn between religious and traditional values – including honesty, pride, family, and hospitality - and their dreams of a Western way of life with its attendant status symbols such as cars, fashion, and glamour.
Although the context and circumstances of my current project are quite different, the sensibility I will bring to the project has been honed and refined by my experiences in the Republic of Georgia. Since this is a global crisis, this project will resonate beyond South Providence. Globalization has a domino effect; as the contagion of bad debt associated with sub-prime mortgages spreads, the whole world is currently getting a wake-up call.
This wake-up call is particularly loud and clear in Upper South Providence with a large African-American and Hispanic population. The median family income in these communities is $24,656 well below the city-wide average of $32,058. In Upper South Providence 36.4% of families live below the poverty line while 16% rely on some form of public assistance. Consequently the unemployment and foreclosure rates are among the highest in the entire city and country. Providence itself has the third highest foreclosure rate in New England. Nearly 1,600 city residents had their homes foreclosed on in 2008, more than doubling the number from 2007.
The distressing numbers associated with this crisis are so overwhelming that often it is too easy to forget that those numbers represent real people. In my project, I want to put faces to those numbers, to depict, in the literal sense of that word, the hardship and loss that can’t be understood by statistics alone. Not only the physical loss of one’s home, their private place to stay, but the inevitable psychological desolation that accompanies the loss of one’s dwelling.
Because I want to focus on the neighborhood in close-up and with the complete participation of its citizens, I intend to spend considerable time in Upper South Providence before beginning to photograph. Just as Roy DeCarava did before he began The Sweet Flypaper of Life in 1950s Harlem. I will be as close as possible with the people in their neighborhood, hanging out, socializing, and, most of all, listening. This is what I did in Tbilisi and this is what I intend to do in South Providence.
With my pictures, I want to communicate people’s everyday life, including their experiences and emotions, so that the observer gets an impression, a sense about what it means to be a person living in South Providence today.
I wish to thank ACORN, the national non-profit, non-partisan social justice organization, the Rhode Island Housing office, and Crossroads Rhode Island for their kind help and continuous co-operation.
When Walker Evans and James Agee traveled across the country in 1936 to take photographs for their landmark book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men they inspired future generations of photographers to follow their example. Now, in 2009, during what may come to be known as our generation’s version of the Great Depression, I would like to make a similar investigation, albeit one more geographically confined and focused. An excursion to document and portray the disrupted lives of the residents of one particular urban neighborhood: South Providence, Rhode Island.
This excursion will explore ideas about identity, image and class in 21st Century America. Because I am a photographer I will express these ideas visually. Because I am a German, I will bring a fresh perspective from a more detached point of view. Because I lived and travelled in India and the Republic of Georgia I have seen and responded to different levels of crushing poverty before. Because I am interested in photojournalistic work and I am always eager to learn about people, and how they represent and express the history, culture, social, and political situation of their country I will bring empathy. This is not the first time I have made such a journey.
In 2007 I spent two months in the Republic of Georgia documenting the diverse lifestyle of contemporary Georgian youth. The result of that effort was a book of 125 photographs depicting the faces, gestures, landscape, and architecture of a young, emergent democracy. Georgia, located at the dividing line between Europe and Asia with deep roots in the Caucasus, has been a representative democracy since 1991 but faces severe problems with its neighbor Russia and its separatist regions Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Today’s young people in Georgia are torn between religious and traditional values – including honesty, pride, family, and hospitality - and their dreams of a Western way of life with its attendant status symbols such as cars, fashion, and glamour.
Although the context and circumstances of my current project are quite different, the sensibility I will bring to the project has been honed and refined by my experiences in the Republic of Georgia. Since this is a global crisis, this project will resonate beyond South Providence. Globalization has a domino effect; as the contagion of bad debt associated with sub-prime mortgages spreads, the whole world is currently getting a wake-up call.
This wake-up call is particularly loud and clear in Upper South Providence with a large African-American and Hispanic population. The median family income in these communities is $24,656 well below the city-wide average of $32,058. In Upper South Providence 36.4% of families live below the poverty line while 16% rely on some form of public assistance. Consequently the unemployment and foreclosure rates are among the highest in the entire city and country. Providence itself has the third highest foreclosure rate in New England. Nearly 1,600 city residents had their homes foreclosed on in 2008, more than doubling the number from 2007.
The distressing numbers associated with this crisis are so overwhelming that often it is too easy to forget that those numbers represent real people. In my project, I want to put faces to those numbers, to depict, in the literal sense of that word, the hardship and loss that can’t be understood by statistics alone. Not only the physical loss of one’s home, their private place to stay, but the inevitable psychological desolation that accompanies the loss of one’s dwelling.
Because I want to focus on the neighborhood in close-up and with the complete participation of its citizens, I intend to spend considerable time in Upper South Providence before beginning to photograph. Just as Roy DeCarava did before he began The Sweet Flypaper of Life in 1950s Harlem. I will be as close as possible with the people in their neighborhood, hanging out, socializing, and, most of all, listening. This is what I did in Tbilisi and this is what I intend to do in South Providence.
With my pictures, I want to communicate people’s everyday life, including their experiences and emotions, so that the observer gets an impression, a sense about what it means to be a person living in South Providence today.
I wish to thank ACORN, the national non-profit, non-partisan social justice organization, the Rhode Island Housing office, and Crossroads Rhode Island for their kind help and continuous co-operation.
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