This
Friday, September 25th, Viktoria Ciostek opens her photography
exhibit, Zones of Discard, at Grant Street Gallery, 216 Grant Street. Ciostek’s work documents the area of the West Side she works
and lives in (the necklace she wears is a symbol for Sweetness_7 Cafe, where
you used to be able to find Viktoria behind the counter on any given day of the week).
Though
Ciostek’s images point to some of the “discarded” buildings in the
neighborhood, Harvey Garrett, executive director of the West Side Community
Collaborative will be quick to point out that this is a neighborhood in which
the infrastructure is intact, homeowners are invested, and business is
beginning to flourish.
Garrett
would say that anyone endeavoring to take over any of these structures would
find themselves with good neighbors, in a neighborhood that can be brought back
from the brink with some vision and work.
Ciostek’s
artful images then, depending on how they’re viewed, can signal discard or
opportunity. We spoke to Ciostek
about her art and her motivation.
ECB: What
came first – your involvement on the West Side or the photo essay?
VC:
Well I grew up on the West Side, so it has always been home to me, but both
sort of happened simultaneously. I moved back to Buffalo in October of
2007 after traveling for a few years overseas and then living in Alaska.
When Prish [Moran of Sweetness_7] told me she bought the building, I
immediately wanted to be part of the project and moved into the building in
April of 2008.
I was
living alone in the building for 6 months before any of the storefronts were
open, and though people said I was crazy for living on Grant Street as a woman,
I never had a problem. I loved being in the midst of all the
revitalization, I felt like I had this great, perfect, secret home on a frontier
that was being pioneered. Those same people that gave me so much grief, who
were afraid to even drive down to Grant Street and visit me, now regularly shop
at Guercio’s and are apartment hunting in the area.
When I
first moved back, I began a project photographing houses on the East
side. When I moved onto Grant Street in the spring, I began walking
around my neighborhood and reacquainting myself with the Lower West Side–there
my photo projects began focusing on the neighborhoods.
When I
was overseas, I spent a lot of time in Greece, Italy, Turkey, Vietnam, India,
Laos, and Cambodia, so to be surrounded by a community that was peppered with
diversity-Vietnamese, Laotian, African, Puerto Rican, Italian–it just felt so
real, so rich, and so much like home. My family immigrated to the US from
Poland when I was just a month old because my father was in the solidarity
movement and was forced to leave. My parents came here with 3 kids, a few
suitcases, and hope for a chance at a new life, so when I walk the streets and
see how many of the immigrants are forced to live-in poor conditions because of
slumlords, poverty, and a mismanaged city that perpetuates the community’s decline,
well I feel very connected to them. There is a very enduring quality
about the people who live here, and the pride they hold on to.
ECB:
You’ve grown up there, worked there, gone to school there, become familiar with
the businesses, community–and you’ve worked elbow to elbow with the
activist/advocates that are working on behalf of the West Side. Your
opinion: on the way up or down, and why?
VC:
Definitely up. There is so much community activism and passion in those
who are supporting revitalization projects, it is really heartening to
see. Sweetness_7 Cafe has been a big hub in networking and connecting
many people who are involved in the much of the activism, and having worked
there, seeing the people and ideas pass through day by day…it’s really
powerful seeing what people can do when they take things into their own
hands. It’s not only in the physical structures, but the mentality of
people who are seeing the area more and more for the beauty and potential that
it holds. Civic evolution is not always positive, particularly when a
city is run by politicians who don’t care about the local citizens, and who
continue to disappoint those who depend on them. Organizations like PUSH,
Buffalo ReUse, Grant Ferry Organization, and the Massachusetts Avenue Project
are empowering people to take a grassroots approach to rebuilding the quality
of life we deserve, to challenge the status quo, and it’s really amazing to
see.
ECB: What is it you’re hoping your audience
will see?
VC: I’m
hoping my audience will see the cultural value and beauty of these
neighborhoods. They are not just grids of streets with dilapidated homes and
boarded-up buildings. They are not
worthless communities infested with drugs, gangs, and prostitution. These
are communities rich with culture and these people are worthy of our
help. Most people look at a boarded-up home, its shattered glass, its
peeling paint, its overgrown garbage infested lawn, and they see…well, they
see a shit hole that needs to be torn down. I look at the house and
wonder why it’s in the shape it’s in? What’s its story? Who left it
that way, and why? I also see the potential and beauty in it if someone
who cared about it could breath some life back into it. In a culture
where progress and materialism engrave the mentality to constantly throw out
the old, buy better and new, to never truly appreciate what we have, to rebuild
cheap and temporary, what happens to our values? We leave fingerprints of
our progress on everything we do and touch, but if we truly paid attention to
the destruction we left behind, would we continue living the way we do?
ECB: The
houses and buildings you photographed, beyond some artful forms of time worn
structures, what’s the aura that surrounds them?
VC: For
me, it’s the stories they tell through the evidence that’s left behind.
When people suffer, the structure of a landscape suffers. Forgotten
structures bridge the past and the present, and they are the lingering clues to
human existence where life seems absent. We all leave fingerprints, and
though I choose to never include people in my photographs, essentially it’s
about the people who impact the area.
ECB: Who
should see your show?
VC: Everyone. It’s important for every citizen of Buffalo
to know what’s going on around them, even if it’s not where they live.
The west side declined over time through the collective effects of the
evolution of our city–we all play a role in that.
Opening reception, 7 to 10PM on the 25th. Show will run until the 2nd week in October.