BREATHING IN KABWE

A collaboration between photographer Hrvoje Slovenc and writer Donald Mengay.

Funded in part by the Mortimer-Hays Brandeis Traveling Fellowship, I traveled to Kabwe, Zambia to photograph the effects of lead pollution on the local population. In preparing for the trip, and especially during my stay there, the initial idea evolved to include not only an illustrated essay about people living in an entirely lead-tainted environment but also a deconstruction of the act of photographing the Other as well.

PARTNERS IN CRIME

In rummaging through boxes of old wedding portraits at a midtown flea market I was intrigued to find that couples that were photographed in the Victorian era rarely, if ever, touched. I wondered what would happen if I reconstructed these portraits substituting same-sex couples for their hetero counterparts. I wondered too what would happen if I chose only those who had been together for years, ones who were almost painfully familiar, posing them in their own domestic spaces.

A PICTURE WINDOW ON CLEVELAND

These photos mark the doubling effect of industrialism, both its centrality, still, in modern life, as well as its slow, sure passing. The latter is evident in the fact that several of the structures here have been earmarked for renovation and development. Some are already in the process of being gutted - transmogrified into impressive new housing units, ones we ourselves would love to live in.