By Jennifer Walsh
An ongoing show entitled When The Financial Levees Broke by Buffalo photojournalist Clark Dever opened Friday, July 10th, at the Grant Street Gallery. After visiting post-Katrina New Orleans and viewing the ultimate destruction that occurred, Dever returned to Buffalo with new eyes. As he was preparing for the Buffalo Marathon and passing through Buffalo's most impoverished neighborhoods, he felt as though he was revisiting the post-Katrina destruction. He noticed that the neighborhoods he passed through appeared eerily similar to neighborhoods in New Orleans, some abandoned with only debris of a past life remaining.
(Post-Katrina New Orleans)
(Post-industrial Buffalo)
At opening night at the Grant Street Gallery, representatives from local organizations such as PUSH Buffalo and Buffalo ReUse greeted visitors. The event served as a great networking opportunity and activism event. The photographs wrapped the perimeter of the gallery, with views of post-industrial Buffalo on the right and post-Katrina on the left. Meeting in the center were two beautifully printed panoramic views of a Buffalo block devoid of inhabitants and a block in New Orleans that was utterly swept away in the destruction of the storm.
When The Financial Levees Broke draws strong conceptual connections between the destruction of New Orleans and Buffalo's post-industrial demise, especially through photographs entitled "Interior of a Post-Katrina Home" and "Interior of a Business".
In "Interior of a Business" (above), the viewer is offered a glimpse of the inside of a building on Buffalo's East Side that was once a thriving business. The photograph demonstrates that a place once full of life and thriving with action is now crumbling and empty. It appears as though operations ceased, and the occupants took what they needed and moved on, leaving debris behind. This photograph is all-too reminiscent of old thriving businesses across the city that were forced to shut their doors when the post-industrial period made them obsolete.
The photograph entitled "Interior of a
Post-Katrina Home" (above) depicts the master bedroom of a New Orleans home, with
personal artifacts strewn about as a family gathered what they could take with
them to move onward. It appears as though the family frantically searched for
what they could carry with them as they fled the city. One could imagine the
number of New Orleans bedrooms left in this manner, especially as Dever
illustrates the number of homes left in a standstill. The cross sections
offered in these two photographs depict scenes of post-destruction flight from
two cities over one thousand miles apart. The
photographs of the post-industrial Buffalo landscape, as captivating as they
were, tell the tale of so many cities that have fallen victim to this type of
economic decline.
These images are not necessarily readable as distinctly Buffalonian, but perhaps could tell the story of urban centers across the country in post-industrial Rust Belt cities.
Although
the photographer draws strong thematic comparisons between Buffalo's
impoverished neighborhoods and post-Katrina New Orleans, the construction of
the show could have allowed the viewer to conceive closer connections between
images. Photographs that were very closely connected were not placed near each
other, and with Dever's large amount of material offered, it becomes difficult
to view all the photographs and make connections afterwards. The two
aforementioned images for example could have been placed more closely to each
other to bring their significance to the forefront, and enhance the
connectedness they share. Dever could have drawn upon the strengths of the two
panoramic photographs in the center of the exhibit to share the
inter-relatedness of the two cities.
Clark Dever's exhibit
When The Financial Levees Broke will be on display at the Grant Street Gallery,
216 Grant Street, through July 16th.
Top image: Jennifer Link @ jennifer-link.com
Grant Street Gallery is a very cool space.