Decay and Development

From 2005 to 2007 I worked on a project I call Destroy and Develop. Walking though the area in Brooklyn where I have lived for years, I took photos daily of abandoned buildings and construction sites.  I created monoscreen silkprints from the photos in black, white and brown, which I then cut, pasted and reconstructed. The end product was a series of large prints that look like the skeletons of buildings layered in a flat compressed space. The lack of space in these compositions has a claustrophobic effect that suggests what one feels after being exposed to the constant changes in the urban landscape.   This series was a very organic, direct response to living within a construction zone where the demolition of old buildings was a daily routine; the pieces reveal how drastic changes can effect our conception of time and space. Destroy and Develop became not only a testament to my neighborhood and the changes that took place in those two years, but also a reflection on rebirth in the form of new architecture, and nostalgia for the past in the form of abandoned or demolished buildings.