mirror

A woman walks the great hall at Grand Central Station in New York City, 2019. 

I detest any concept or definition that includes the word "race," a 19th Century word that denotes something "biological" that does not exist. How we still use such a damaging word is beyond me.  We need to come up with another word that utterly destroys the fallacy of "race" while comprehensively allowing for a conversation about systemic and institutionalized prejudice shaped by misinformation about skin color, and how that "misinformation" continues to subjugate, dis-empower and destroy social agency for non-European descendants.

But anyhow. I must have photographed hundreds of individuals during the making of this series. And I can count with both hands the number of non-European-descendants who came across my lens. Mind you, please note, I used variations of two distinctive methods for maximizing randomness of "who" was being selected for photographing. One was used by the dance choreographer Merce Cunningham, while the other I borrowed from a digging technique we used in an urban archeology class I took at City College of CUNY. So, this photograph and this woman directly address my interest in documenting who has access to a specific location like Grand Central Station. What stands out for me is the fact that the large majority of people who came across my lens were of European descent, and that it is very difficult not to surmise that a place like Grand Central Station is psychologically and physically segregated. This society need not have laws in place to make such segregation real for a non-European-descendant person, because Grand Central Station, like most places in the U.s, is a place that has unwritten, silent directives that shape "access" to non-European descendants.

PRINT INFO
Title: Mirror
Series: Passenger
Year created: 2019
Print Size: 40 x 32 in - 101.6 x 81.2 cm
Medium: Photography
Media: Archival Pigment Print
Edition of 3 + 1 AP
(AP not for sale)

Prints are titled, dated, numbered, and signed on verso.
Certificate of authenticity will be provided.