In March of 2025 I participated in a month long Artist In Residence (AIR) program in Staten Island, NY. The AIR program was hosted by WORTHLESS STUDIOS and presented in partnership with the Alice Austen House Museum (AAH). Over the course of that month I produced the work below, as a continuation of my project ¿Dónde Está Raulito? I also partnered with AAH to provide darkroom photography workshops to Middle-School and High-school photography student groups.
Artist Statement:
Richmond Terrace, a main throughway that runs across the North Shore of Staten Island was my starting point. Once a bustling harbor lined with factories, docks, and a train line in the late 19th and early 20th century, is now a post-industrial landscape that resembles many other once-busy waterfronts in New York such as Red Hook and Greenpoint. As I spent more time examining this space I came to notice the ways in which this strip of land has exemplified the social and economic inequalities of our time. I found the tents of unhoused folk living along the shores of the Kill Van Kull, the same waterway that large mega cargo ships pass as they transport the goods and economic capital from overseas to the port of NY/NJ, the 2nd largest port in the United States.
Following the road towards the area under the Bayonne bridge, I examined a recent construction of homes built across the street from the former Archer-Daniels Midland Company building, which was tasked with storing uranium ore for the Manhattan Project during WWII. Many first time home owners purchased these homes not knowing the risk of living on top of uranium deposits, which over time, decay into toxic Radon gas, which is the #1 cause of lung cancer in non-smokers today. These discoveries led me to explore other sites of inequalities on the island such as the New York City Farm Colony in the Willowbrook Area, where immigrants, the poor, disabled, and disadvantaged were sent away to, including Alice Austen for a brief time towards the end of her life.
Many of the images in this series have also been cut, damaged, layered, and written on. This is a visual expression of my frustration with the limitations of the medium and an attempt at using written word and language to comment on ideas that are complex and difficult to show visually. Some of the phrases I’ve written on the negatives come directly from things that my father, who has lived for many years unhoused, has told me over the years. The final result is a still-ongoing project that asks the viewer to question their perceptions of what it means to be a Staten Islander, and their relationship to the unhoused population, who are often family, neighbors, and coworkers; hyper-visible, often voiceless, and always human beings deserving of compassion and love.
