Artist's Statement: Not in My Backyard

The Environmental Protection Agency defines environmental justice as “the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies.” It only takes a short walk to realize this has not been the case in South Apopka.

In this instance, a sign of environmental injustice is a disproportionately large number of hazardous, toxic, or polluting sites within a concentrated area in close proximity to neighborhoods of substandard housing. When I learned there was a medical waste incinerator right next to a playground in Apopka, I knew that something suspicious had happened. It was not until two years later after first learning of this space that I finally had the opportunity to investigate further.

The total area depicted in this series fits within a radius of a quarter mile. Eight of the fourteen images were taken from the playground itself, which Waste Management agreed to build as part of the deal to open a second landfill. It was often difficult to get a good view of the Stericycle medical waste incinerator and two landfills. Overgrown brush and a few thorny vines buffering the fences shield the back view of the facilities. A variety of no trespassing signs on the front make it clear that people are not welcome. Once, when I was taking photographs in front of Stericycle, a truck driver exiting the gate stepped out of his 18-weeler and said, “I see you’re taking pictures, what’s it for?” After I informed him of the academic nature of my project, he replied, “You know we don’t want that.” I waited for him to drive away and continued taking pictures while I myself was in view of the facility’s security cameras.

Whether I was under video surveillance, trekking through thorny brush, or peering through fences, the sense of unease permeated the site, which was made palpable by the sounds and smells suggested in the pictures, but visibly absent.  I could hear the hum of the incinerator as it was in operation, probably spewing out a variety of neurotoxins when I was next door in the playground. After a bit of rain, there’s a pungent smell of what I can only describe as barbequed garbage. Local residents have also raised complaints about the smell of methane that creeps into their houses in the morning, but Waste Management officials say the source of the odor is from a sewage treatment plant across the other side of the neighborhood. With so many sites spewing pollution, accountability is difficult to come by since everyone can point their fingers at everyone else. I felt simultaneously sneaky and unsettled while taking these photographs, a feeling which I intended to convey in this series. Although, when I was done, I could leave. Many people live around here, and this is only one place of thousands with a similar story. 

ART 300 Final Portfolio: Not in My Backyard

Senior Seminar poster

As you may already know, besides this photography project, South Apopka is also the topic of my senior seminar for my environmental studies major. The final body of work is an academic poster, a jpg version of which is below. I tried to make it both aesthetically artistic and academically informative, turning what could have been be a bland and boring representation of a semester's worth of work into a fusion of art and academia. The barbed wire is clearly visible across the title, and the fence is more visible on the printed version. With the background I was hoping to hit the emotional part of the brain before the viewer even started reading, and each picture contains a little paragraph that tells you a little bit of the story. The whole thing is brought together in the middle, where you can clearly see where each picture was taken. Some of the photos here I will be using in my final critique for Photo II, and others function more as visual documents, simply showing people what the place looks like.

Google Reader #13

http://flakphoto.com/photo/frances-f-denny-sisters-home-for-thanksgiving?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+FlakPhoto+%28Flak+Photo%29&utm_content=Google+Reader#When:14:37:51Z

When I clicked on the link for this photograph, I expected to see a big family around a big table with a big thanksgiving dinner and turkey, everyone smiling and happy and feasting until their stomachs are stretched to maximum capacity. However, the reality is quite different. There are only two people, sisters sitting among a pale aqua color scheme. There's no food, no dining table, and no smiling faces. In fact, they don't look particularly happy to be home.

Real families are much more complicated than the stereotypical image of them, and holidays celebrations are not always as big a deal as they are made out to be. I vaguely remember hearing that depression rates rise during Christmas because of the discrepancy between how happy and joyous culture says we should be during the holidays and the cold hard reality of how people are really feeling.  Something similar is probably true for Thanksgiving, although perhaps not as intense. Throughout life many people accrue interpersonal baggage with family members, and the holidays can force them to get together. On the other hand, large family reunions can be a gathering of strangers that you also happen to be related to. Anyway, the holidays are not always pleasant.

Reading Response Ch 7

Despite the fact that photographs were always malleable in the darkroom, panic still ensued over the degradation of the real as digital photography developed. Perhaps any new technology goes through a period of distrust until people become used to it, and I think it is safe to say that today our grasp on reality has not been dramatically unhinged by digital technology, at least not yet. I was surprised to learn that the images of the SUV were computer-generated, but that does not mean that I'm plugged into the matrix. People can even immerse themselves in 3D CGI films and still emerge completely sane, or at least as sane as they were to begin with.

Throughout the evolution of the photograph, the mediums may have changed, but it still remains basically the same thing. We use memory cards instead of film, but they both carry the impressions made by light. We used to use shoe boxes, now we have digital files. There is a different feel to it. Shoe boxes and photo albums can be more intimate and precious, and even quaint today, but we are still within our abilities to print out are digital pictures and store them in a shoe box if we so desire.

The real clamor over the manipulation of photographs was not so much caused by the photographs, but more likely by a limited understanding of photography and the non-existant "normal" photograph. People thought that photography must be a certain way and only that one way, whereas in reality there is a whole spectrum of different photographies that do not fit the cultural preconceptions.

Google Reader #12

http://www.lenscratch.com/2013/04/sarah-stankey-one-for-birds.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+lenscratch%2FZAbG+%28L++E++N++S++C++R++A++T++C++H%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

After working on my photography project, this series was sort of a sigh of relief. My favorite type of photographs usually capture the image of something nice or quant that I otherwise would not have seen.  Most of the pictures in this body of work are of nature or have animals in them. Animals can be particularly challenging to photograph, especially rabbits that instinctually run away from oncoming large animals such as photographers. They don't pose, their movements are unpredictable, they are difficult to find, and you can't just go back and take more pictures.

I've been working most of the semester on taking pictures of a place that is not exactly picturesque and is heavy with social and environmental issues. There's a time and place for multiple layers of meaning and context and analysis and connotation, but sometimes it's nice to just look at some pretty pictures.

Work in Progress #4

One thing that I tried to do this time was to get some new angles and views, especially with the radioactive yellow pony. When I first started taking pictures of this area, I was generally operating from my default documentary style, recording the place generally from eye-level so that people would get an idea of what it would look like if they just walked around. Now, I'm manipulating the perspective much more, practically lying on the ground, ducking under thorny vines, or holding the camera above my head to get the shot I want. 

I've also incorporated some text in this series. There are plenty of foreboding signs around, stating things like "no trespassing," "violators will be prosecuted," and "24-hour video surveillance," all of which should probably be rotated 180 degrees.  It's the different waste industries that have trespassed and violated the land and community, either covertly or with bribery.

Anyway, those signs I thought to be a bit too overt, as I could convey the same feeling much more symbolically with the barbed wire. However, I did want the name Stericycle in the work somehow so to keep it anchored to the place. The gas line sign is a nice little reminder of what lies hidden beneath the ground, plus the pole appears the same yellow as our pony friend. 

Google Reader #11

http://www.urbanautica.com/post/47099840771/richard-misrach

This body of work reminded me of my own project. In Louisiana there's a band of chemical facilities that first reached public attention as "Cancer Ally" I suspect that the environmental injustice story here is pretty similar to Keene Road in Apopka, where I have been taking most of my pictures.

The photos here appear off-putting. It is clear that something has gone wrong, with the unnaturally green goopy water, desolate landscapes, and odd industrial building. The grey-green color was most likely caused by a toxic soup of all the waste chemicals. In addition to causing cancer, the waste product has severely limited the diversity of flora and fauna that can survive in the ecosystem.

At this point, I can't look at these images without wondering about the demographic info of the area, local health issues, decreasing property values, zoning laws, environmental degradation, and what this place must smell like. Sites like these tend to be clumped together, out of site and mind of most people, but glaringly unjust to the people whose lives are personally affect every day.

Reading Response Ch 6

At this little liberal arts school, I've been able to take classes in a variety of fields, and I realized that in my humanities classes I often end up defending science and technology. Here I go again.

According to this chapter, art and technology were viewed as separate when photography was developed (a true enough statement of the cultural views of the time). However, people, especially large groups of people, often don't understand very much. Before talking about technology (and thus the scientific research that enables it), let's talk about tools. Tools are just simple external objects that extend our senses or our ability to do things, things like spears, pencils, and eyeglasses. People usually aren't afraid of these because they are relatively simple and operate in the same spacial and temporal references that we do. In the case of the artist, their tools may include a paint brush and canvas, and I think that we can agree that the tools of art are inseparable from its ability to be created.

Paint brushes are simple. Cameras are complicated, which is the only real difference between tools and technology. A good indication of technology is that no one person would be able to build it. Technology is often viewed as separate and something other beyond that of paintbrushes because people don't really know how they work.

Even though camera's are more mechanical, that does not invalidate its artistic possibilities. No one is arguing that making haiku is not a creative process because it follows a rigid formula. Photography may be more bound to reality than other types of art, but just like a haiku, it manages to be art within its boundaries. Not only that, but the boundaries and limitations may even make it more artistic, because it may take more creative energy to create art with a less-flexible medium.

Q: Is viewing a photograph purely a subjective experience, or are some photos objectively better than others?

Google Reader #10

http://www.lenscratch.com/2013/03/tom-wik.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+lenscratch%2FZAbG+%28L++E++N++S++C++R++A++T++C++H%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

I've recently become interested in the subject of facades, both what they tell us and what they hide. I think that everyone has an image of themself that they choose to let the world see and then a more authentic self that takes time and effort and risk to get to know.

We can do something similar with our physical spaces. In my project with Apopka, the spaces I'm photographing generally have a defensive or secretive facade. A place like Baldwin Park appears sterilized and mass-produced.

The facade of the homes in this blog post are able to communicate that these are individual private residences. I do like the ones where the exterior of the house is shrouded in shrubbery; it makes the home feel more cozy. In the description, the artist says that such an image says, "Don't bother friending me," but I disagree, at least for the homes where the foliage appears natural or messy. From my perspective, those houses say, "If I let you in, then you're something special, and what happens here is not for the whole world to see."

Some of the other houses and their landscaping look too perfect and too fake. In this case, the facade says that image is more important than substance, and it works to hide what lies behind it.