Camilo José Vergara
Invisible Cities
Since the 1970’s I have been documenting America’s ghettos by photographing the built environment in Harlem, the South Bronx, Chicago, Newark and other places. I record mostly the buildings where people live, the factories, institutions and offices where they work, the streets they walk along, objects people use, and the fields and parks in which they play. I take photographs of the pictures and drawings I find on bedroom walls, inside abandoned factories and on external building walls. I also photograph objects people use such as toys, fire hydrants, and old machines. From the beginnings of my project I decided not to focus on images of poor people—often minorities who inhabit these areas, an approach the street photographer Helen Levitt might have taken. For me a visual history of urban America organized around portraits of minority residents would be very limited. People are often engaging; their feelings and emotions are moving; yet it is often difficult to know much about them from photographic likenesses. I found that images of the physical communities in which people live often better reveal the choices made by residents and city officials over the long haul. When presented together as a series, photographs of the built environment constitute the essential element of an urban history told from the ground up.
I use photographs as a means of discovery, as a tool with which to clarify visions and construct knowledge about a particular place, or city. I take panoramic photograph of cities from high viewpoints as well as from ground level. I prefer to photograph with even light, avoiding haze, harsh shadows or rain so the images are as clear and revealing as possible. A set of photographs coupled with interviews from a block, neighborhood or a building became the starting point for developing stories that I hope will help establish a place’s changing identity. My work asks basic questions: what was this place in the past, who uses it now, and what are its current prospects? Using insights from a variety of disciplines such as ethnography, history, and archeology, I uncover patterns shaping the nation’s poorest and most segregated postindustrial cities.