IT'S Y(OUR) LOSS
A series addressing issues of innocence, loss and the environmental impact of our economic engine, through altered photo documentary of lost and abandoned toys found in our streets and public spaces.
I began photographing lost and abandoned toys on the streets of Providence, Boston and New York in 2007. Through the low-resolution lens of a cellphone camera, these snapshots served as anonymous evidence of personal loss, carelessness and "throwaway" consumerism.
The repeated silhouette of an "anonymous innocent" appears, embroidered in dental floss on waxed paper – commonplace disposables. Stitched, ironed and sealed behind the glass, this minty-fresh, mysterious icon is at once the perpetuator, the seeker and the casualty of the underlying photographic evidence.
As our economy has unraveled, I have noticed a shift in the frequency, location and condition of my site-specific finds. Subjects are fewer and farther between, and are often in poor shape – found in gutters, missing heads or limbs…the carefully bittersweet arrangements of my early, pristine finds have been replaced with an underlying veneer of flight and violence.
As communities lose jobs, and families lose homes, the consequences of greed and carelessness mark our streets with the detritus of loss, making us all rethink what we hold most dear.
