Documenting ChangeWilliamsburg/Greenpoint: The Disappeared and the Endangered at Art 101 (Block Magazine)

Documenting Change
Williamsburg/Greenpoint: The Disappeared and the Endangered at Art 101
By Dakota Kim

Many have called Williamsburg a microcosm of New York - its many waves of immigration, its sheer diversity of history. In "Williamsburg/Greenpoint: The Disappeared and The Endangered," an exhibit of twelve local photographers at Art 101 Gallery, these different threads came together to illustrate the stark beauty of industrial architecture, a vibrant street life, and private scenes of a changing neighborhood.

An intimate space in size and atmosphere, Art 101 lends itself to accidental shoulder bumping and discussion of the work crowding its walls and the recent changes in the neighborhood. All the better in this exhibit, where community awareness is the intended result, said curator Nancy Wechter.

"As a photographer, I came to Williamsburg in 1984 for the space and light, and stayed because of the people," said Wechter. "With this exhibit, I want the community to come together in discussion so that we can really remember our history, identify what we care about, and learn to preserve it."

In one of the exhibit's most striking photographs by Joyce George, two middle-aged women sit side-by-side on the Grand Street waterfront in their bathing suits, lounging and smiling into the sun and breeze, Manhattan visible but a world away.

In a stunning multi-panel panoramic photograph, "Documenting the Transition: Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal I 1994-98," Peter Gillespie exhibits the industrial landscape changes from Owl's Head Park to the end of Newton Creek.

"Though not explicitly political, the photos do inform the recent community organization work I've done to try to promote and nurture the thriving but fragile industrial and artisanal sector that is now threatened, not by global forces, but by ill-conceived public policy," said Gillespie, who serves as the executive director of the local non-profit community group Neighbors Against Garbage.

Photographer Regina Monfort spent nine years photographing the Southside Latino community in a project entitled "Beyond Grand Street." In her images, families, children and couples interact together in energetic and tender moments, making the strong bonds of community evident.

"[These images] stand as an homage to the timeless beauty of a neighborhood and its people," said photographer Regina Monfort. "The very people I photographed over the years are the ones threatened to be erased from the local map."

Like Wechter, gallery owner and painter Ellen Rand came to Williamsburg in 1982 for the kind of light that artists in sky-scraped Manhattan often find completely unattainable.

"I still feel like there's a real community here – we're very lucky to live in a place that's so alive, and it's something worth documenting and preserving," said Rand.

The exhibit shows the importance of the physical landscape in creating a social atmosphere and a community. In photograph after photograph, Williamsburg residents are at their happiest in architectural surroundings that are not sleek and polished, but instead affordable and conducive to community interaction. An impromptu block party, a stoop, a bodega or a playground often provides as much interaction as an official community center. When these de facto spaces are lost or made hostile by architectural changes, the social fabric is rended, separating members of the same community.

"With beautiful old industrial buildings going away and forty-story towers appearing, a certain relaxation and ease as well as the working class and the artists are starting to go away," said Wechter. "The roots of the neighborhood, people who have lived here for years and years and who have very emotional ties to the neighborhood, can no longer afford the rents. We need to document this and do our best to stop it."