This video, created by artist John Dingler (what he calls a movie-ette), documents a project initiated at my old studio in Riverside, California. John and Monte (my friend and studiomate who passed away last week) lived several blocks from our warehouse/studio. I worked at a museum about 6 blocks away and often visited the studio during lunch or after work. In 2008 during the surge of the recession, I did an informal count and it seemed that about 1 in 7 houses downtown were foreclosed upon in Riverside. In an alley about 2 blocks from the studio we found a trove of photos scattered, probably from a repossessed house’s displaced items. John, Monte and I collected the photos and at John’s urging, we placed them in an alcove in the unused freight yard behind our studio, next to a busy street so that drivers could see them. There was also a small homeless community that used the abandoned rail line to get from downtown to the shelter. I don’t remember if John spoke about his intentions for the project but for me it was a simple gesture to make a memorial of people and hidden lives from our neighborhood during heavy trauma from the recession. We didn’t know if people would stop to look at the photos, take them, or even who exactly was the audience. The photos stayed up several days and then disappeared. About one year later I started a similar project myself near my apartment to post my photos, primarily shot in Riverside, and post them on light poles in a frequented intersection about 2 blocks from my apartment. Early photos stayed several days or up to a few weeks, but slowly the photos would disappear. I’d like to think that it was fans of my work that took them. I continued to add several photos a week until I left at the end of October 2010.
Below are photos of one of the lightposts I posted on, as well as some photos of the recession in Riverside in 2008. There area looks largely the same. I have many more photos.
