mara catalán

Creative content photographer/artist/black and white fine art printer
     
Williamsburg in the 1990's
Public Project
Williamsburg in the 1990's
Copyright mara catalan 2024
Date of Work Dec 1969 - Dec 1969
Updated Nov 2019
Topics Black and White, Community, Documentary, Editorial, Environment, Family, Fine Art, Friends + Family, Globalization, map, Photography, Photojournalism, Street
In 2008 my father died. A year later I realized, because of the loss, my broken heart had been wandering between two countries - two spaces with no sense of reality. This emotion led me to start looking into my photo archive, rescuing forgotten streets of the past, revisiting hidden memories, and lifting stones to try to recognize the smell of home.
I recently completed my journey with this book project: "Williamsburg: A place I once called home".
 In this personal odysseyI bring back to light the Williamsburg (Brooklyn) of the 1990's that belonged to me, a coming of age story of a girl, a Spanish immigrant, who came to live in Williamsburg in 1994 as a young stranger, and became part of its history, It’s a  story of discovery, love, loss and friendship. 
While it’s a personal journey the project is also an extensive collection of black and white archival photographs of historical value; an urban documentation of an era in Williamsburg, that has know disappeared. Williamsburg: A place I once called homeis a way of bringing back to the present a past that should not be forgotten.
The black and white photographs represent the Williamsburg that belongs to me. It is my personal journey and my memories from the neighborhood between 1994 and 1996. The text included in this project is in both in Spanish and English. I swiftly try to unify two worlds that collide. Images, personal letters, diaries, stories and other details that were written or received over the last decade provoke feelings of nostalgia and loss that work as a mirror in which the spectator, can see themselves reflected. 
It is also a collection of documentary photography in the best tradition. I offer an archive of images of historical value, an urban documentation of an era in Williamsburg that has now disappeared. Due to the gentrification of the neighborhood many of the places and buildings that are in my photographs no longer exist, It is an archive that adds to the existing documents of the changing face of New York.  
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