This photo essay ‘Los Angeles’ is an archive and a map about the place where I live. My paternal great uncle came first, in the 19-teens, followed by his younger brother, my grandfather, and eventually their parents and two younger siblings. I don’t know when my paternal grandmother came. My maternal grandparents came in the late 1930’s. I began by locating where they all lived and then searching for artists I have an affinity for, finding where they lived and all the places I’ve lived along with places that I decided were relevant to my family and me. Along with these locations I photograph intersections and reservoirs, symbolically and literally the lifeline and no-places of the city.
There are also diversions – a series of pictures taken within walking distance of where I live now, pictures recording the progress of a new art museum being built, videos of traffic, videos of streets, videos of people going about their lives in Los Angeles.
While all of these things are rooted in time and place my intention is to record it as the present moment, authentic place is always changing and I am interested in the dialectic between the distant view and the close look, space and place, the document and the memory.
Bio
Born 1969, Los Angeles.
1987 – 1995: Studied Photography at San Francisco State University, San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI), Intermedia and Photography, Nova Scotia College of Art & Design (NSCAD) and Photography and Critical Writing, California Institute of the Arts (CalArts).