Camilo José Vergara
Encyclopedia
Camilo José Vergara is a Chilean-born, New York
-based writer, photographer and documentarian. He was born in Santiago, Chile
.
Vergara has been compared to Jacob Riis
for his photographic documentation of American
slums and decaying urban environments. Beginning in the 1980s, Vergara applied the technique of rephotography
to a series of American cities, photographing the same buildings and neighborhoods from the exact vantage point at regular intervals over many years to capture changes over time. Trained as a sociologist with a specialty in urbanism, Vergara turned to his systematic documentation at a moment of extraordinary urban stress, and he chose locales where that stress seemed highest: the housing projects of Chicago; the South Bronx of New York City; Camden, New Jersey; and Detroit, Michigan, among others.
Vergara began as a humanistic New York street photographer in the early '70s, when he moved to the city. This work changed significantly in the middle 1970s, when graduate work in sociology at Columbia University increasingly sensitized him to the complexities of environmental influences on social behavior. The advent of Kodachrome 64 film in 1974 alerted Vergara to the possibilities of permanent color photographic records of changing urban landscapes and their features. He began at that time to work systematically, using techniques adapted from sociological methodologies; traveling from one subway stop to the next, he would emerge onto the street and then photograph the surrounding blocks, fanning steadily outward. By 1977, he had come upon a rough approximation of his lifelong working method, returning to the same locales over time to photograph changes in the makeup of the communities in question.
With more than a decade of photographs to document the extraordinary phenomena of de-urbanization (including the conversion of buildings from one function to a second, then a third, before their abandonment, and the process by which nature recolonized long-urban areas), Vergara published The New American Ghetto with Rutgers University Press, to wide critical acclaim, from sociological and photographic critics alike. He received the Robert E. Park Award of the American Sociological Association for The New American Ghetto in 1997. His photographic projects, undertaken at a time when documentary photography
was in a state of decline, are credited with catalyzing a resurgence of that form of humanistic, reform-directed, socially committed photography.
The rephotographic method, with its rigorous demands for systematic return, exact replication of vantage point, angle of view, and lens choice, had emerged originally out of the need for scientific evidence of change over time in ecological niches. As a photographer, however, Vergara's work was never rigid; while moving into and out of neighborhoods and areas to make his return photographs, Vergara made other pictures—of residents, of smaller details, nearly all in color. Beginning with The New American Ghetto, Vergara increasingly interwove these photographs, along with quotes from outside writers, fragments of comments by citizen-dwellers in the cityscapes he developed, and his own writing. Vergara's work was the subject of a 1999 exhibit at the National Building Museum
, "El Nuevo Mundo: The Landscape of Latino
Los Angeles
." The exhibit was shown later in 1999 at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution
. "The New American Ghetto", an earlier exhibition, opened at the National Building Museum
and was later shown at The Municipal Arts Society in New York City
. After the publication of his second major work, American Ruins, Vergara's reputation was fully established; he won a MacArthur Foundation
"genius grant" in 2002 and served as a fellow at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Center for the Humanities (MARCH) at Rutgers University
in 2003/2004.
The advent of sophisticated internet combinations of mapping, visual archiving, and hyperlinking have enabled Vergara to present his work in ways that can combine both the vertical (change over time) and the horizontal (change across space) and link the visual images to texts and databases. Since 2004, Vergara's main work has been conveyed in a website called "Invincible Cities" in addition to a continuing series of exhibitions, books, and magazine projects, including a collection of pictures of Chicago's public housing for the new literary magazine Grantas Fall, 2009 issue. Slate magazine has also commissioned him to produce "mines" of his work—collections that feature topics or themes, from GM automobiles to distant traces of the World Trade Towers.
Vergara's thinking as an urban sociologist has never been orthodox. In 1995, Vergara made a controversial proposal that 12 square blocks of downtown Detroit be declared a "skyscraper ruins park," an "American acropolis
," for the preservation and study of the deteriorating and empty skyscrapers. "We could transform the nearly 100 troubled buildings into a grand national historic park of play and wonder, an urban Monument Valley
.... Midwestern prairie would be allowed to invade from the north. Trees, vines, and wildflowers would grow on roofs and out of windows; goats and wild animals—squirrels, possum, bats, owls, ravens, snakes and insects—would live in the empty behemoths, adding their calls, hoots and screeches to the smell of rotten leaves and animal droppings." (Metropolis, April 1995). Vergara's proposal ran squarely against the optimistic pronouncements of Detroit's rebuilding by politicians and boosters and resulted in a deluge of protest.
Vergara received a B.A. (1968) in sociology
from the University of Notre Dame
and an M.A. (1977) in sociology from Columbia University
, where he also completed the course work for his Ph.D. (not yet awarded). His work has been published in seven books:
Vergara was rewarded a Berlin Prize fellowship and will spend the academic spring semester 2010 at the American Academy in Berlin
.
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
-based writer, photographer and documentarian. He was born in Santiago, Chile
Santiago, Chile
Santiago , also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile, and the center of its largest conurbation . It is located in the country's central valley, at an elevation of above mean sea level...
.
Vergara has been compared to Jacob Riis
Jacob Riis
Jacob August Riis was a Danish American social reformer, "muckraking" journalist and social documentary photographer. He is known for using his photographic and journalistic talents to help the impoverished in New York City; those impoverished New Yorkers were the subject of most of his prolific...
for his photographic documentation of American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
slums and decaying urban environments. Beginning in the 1980s, Vergara applied the technique of rephotography
Rephotography
Rephotography is the act of repeat photography of the same site, with a time lag between the two images; a "then and now" view of a particular area. Some are casual, usually taken from the same view point but without regard to season, lens coverage or framing. Some are very precise and involve a...
to a series of American cities, photographing the same buildings and neighborhoods from the exact vantage point at regular intervals over many years to capture changes over time. Trained as a sociologist with a specialty in urbanism, Vergara turned to his systematic documentation at a moment of extraordinary urban stress, and he chose locales where that stress seemed highest: the housing projects of Chicago; the South Bronx of New York City; Camden, New Jersey; and Detroit, Michigan, among others.
Vergara began as a humanistic New York street photographer in the early '70s, when he moved to the city. This work changed significantly in the middle 1970s, when graduate work in sociology at Columbia University increasingly sensitized him to the complexities of environmental influences on social behavior. The advent of Kodachrome 64 film in 1974 alerted Vergara to the possibilities of permanent color photographic records of changing urban landscapes and their features. He began at that time to work systematically, using techniques adapted from sociological methodologies; traveling from one subway stop to the next, he would emerge onto the street and then photograph the surrounding blocks, fanning steadily outward. By 1977, he had come upon a rough approximation of his lifelong working method, returning to the same locales over time to photograph changes in the makeup of the communities in question.
With more than a decade of photographs to document the extraordinary phenomena of de-urbanization (including the conversion of buildings from one function to a second, then a third, before their abandonment, and the process by which nature recolonized long-urban areas), Vergara published The New American Ghetto with Rutgers University Press, to wide critical acclaim, from sociological and photographic critics alike. He received the Robert E. Park Award of the American Sociological Association for The New American Ghetto in 1997. His photographic projects, undertaken at a time when documentary photography
Documentary photography
Documentary photography usually refers to a popular form of photography used to chronicle significant and historical events. It is typically covered in professional photojournalism, but it may also be an amateur, artistic, or academic pursuit...
was in a state of decline, are credited with catalyzing a resurgence of that form of humanistic, reform-directed, socially committed photography.
The rephotographic method, with its rigorous demands for systematic return, exact replication of vantage point, angle of view, and lens choice, had emerged originally out of the need for scientific evidence of change over time in ecological niches. As a photographer, however, Vergara's work was never rigid; while moving into and out of neighborhoods and areas to make his return photographs, Vergara made other pictures—of residents, of smaller details, nearly all in color. Beginning with The New American Ghetto, Vergara increasingly interwove these photographs, along with quotes from outside writers, fragments of comments by citizen-dwellers in the cityscapes he developed, and his own writing. Vergara's work was the subject of a 1999 exhibit at the National Building Museum
National Building Museum
The National Builders Museum, in Washington, D.C., United States, is a museum of "architecture, design, engineering, construction, and urban planning"...
, "El Nuevo Mundo: The Landscape of Latino
Latino
The demonyms Latino and Latina , are defined in English language dictionaries as:* "a person of Latin-American descent."* "A Latin American."* "A person of Hispanic, especially Latin-American, descent, often one living in the United States."...
Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
." The exhibit was shown later in 1999 at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
. "The New American Ghetto", an earlier exhibition, opened at the National Building Museum
National Building Museum
The National Builders Museum, in Washington, D.C., United States, is a museum of "architecture, design, engineering, construction, and urban planning"...
and was later shown at The Municipal Arts Society in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. After the publication of his second major work, American Ruins, Vergara's reputation was fully established; he won a MacArthur Foundation
MacArthur Foundation
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is one of the largest private foundations in the United States. Based in Chicago but supporting non-profit organizations that work in 60 countries, MacArthur has awarded more than US$4 billion since its inception in 1978...
"genius grant" in 2002 and served as a fellow at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Center for the Humanities (MARCH) at Rutgers University
Rutgers University
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey , is the largest institution for higher education in New Jersey, United States. It was originally chartered as Queen's College in 1766. It is the eighth-oldest college in the United States and one of the nine Colonial colleges founded before the American...
in 2003/2004.
The advent of sophisticated internet combinations of mapping, visual archiving, and hyperlinking have enabled Vergara to present his work in ways that can combine both the vertical (change over time) and the horizontal (change across space) and link the visual images to texts and databases. Since 2004, Vergara's main work has been conveyed in a website called "Invincible Cities" in addition to a continuing series of exhibitions, books, and magazine projects, including a collection of pictures of Chicago's public housing for the new literary magazine Grantas Fall, 2009 issue. Slate magazine has also commissioned him to produce "mines" of his work—collections that feature topics or themes, from GM automobiles to distant traces of the World Trade Towers.
Vergara's thinking as an urban sociologist has never been orthodox. In 1995, Vergara made a controversial proposal that 12 square blocks of downtown Detroit be declared a "skyscraper ruins park," an "American acropolis
Acropolis
Acropolis means "high city" in Greek, literally city on the extremity and is usually translated into English as Citadel . For purposes of defense, early people naturally chose elevated ground to build a new settlement, frequently a hill with precipitous sides...
," for the preservation and study of the deteriorating and empty skyscrapers. "We could transform the nearly 100 troubled buildings into a grand national historic park of play and wonder, an urban Monument Valley
Monument Valley
Monument Valley is a region of the Colorado Plateau characterized by a cluster of vast sandstone buttes, the largest reaching above the valley floor. It is located on the northern border of Arizona with southern Utah , near the Four Corners area...
.... Midwestern prairie would be allowed to invade from the north. Trees, vines, and wildflowers would grow on roofs and out of windows; goats and wild animals—squirrels, possum, bats, owls, ravens, snakes and insects—would live in the empty behemoths, adding their calls, hoots and screeches to the smell of rotten leaves and animal droppings." (Metropolis, April 1995). Vergara's proposal ran squarely against the optimistic pronouncements of Detroit's rebuilding by politicians and boosters and resulted in a deluge of protest.
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
from the University of Notre Dame
University of Notre Dame
The University of Notre Dame du Lac is a Catholic research university located in Notre Dame, an unincorporated community north of the city of South Bend, in St. Joseph County, Indiana, United States...
and an M.A. (1977) in sociology from Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, where he also completed the course work for his Ph.D. (not yet awarded). His work has been published in seven books:
- 1989, Silent Cities: The Evolution of the American Cemetery. ISBN 0910413223
- 1995, New American Ghetto. ISBN 0813522099
- 1999, American Ruins. ISBN 1580930565
- 2001, Twin Towers Remembered. ISBN 1568983514
- 2001, Unexpected Chicagoland. ISBN 1565847016
- 2004, Subway Memories. ISBN 1580931464
- 2005, How the Other Half Worships. ISBN 0813536820
Vergara was rewarded a Berlin Prize fellowship and will spend the academic spring semester 2010 at the American Academy in Berlin
American Academy in Berlin
The American Academy in Berlin is a research and cultural institution in Berlin whose stated mission is to foster a greater understanding and dialogue between the people of the United States and the people of Germany.The American Academy was founded in September 1994 by a group of prominent...
.
External links
- Invincible Cities
- The American Academy in Berlin http://www.americanacademy.de