Jeffrey A. Wolin : Pigeon Hill: then & now

Author / Creator

Wolin, Jeffrey A., photographer

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Summary

From 1987 to 1991, Jeffrey Wolin made hundreds of portraits showing residents of Bloomington's, Indiana, housing projects, known as "Pigeon Hill". At the time there was much discussion about the pr...

From 1987 to 1991, Jeffrey Wolin made hundreds of portraits showing residents of Bloomington's, Indiana, housing projects, known as "Pigeon Hill". At the time there was much discussion about the problems of the welfare state with crime, drug abuse, and enduring poverty. In 2010, a meth dealer had murdered a woman and her picture appeared in the local newspaper. Wolin recognized her as the subject of several of his earlier portraits. He decided to locate the residents of the projects that he had photographed before and to show how their lives were going, a full generation later. Over the past five years he re-photographed over 100 individuals. The economic condition of many remains poor, while others now live solidly middle-class lives. More than a few are firmly entrenched in the criminal justice system, usually for non-violent crimes such as lack of payment of child support or drug use. America has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world. Wolin's focus is on the faces themselves paired with the earlier portraits. One can see the effects of the passing of time and the ways in which experiences in life - good and bad - are written into these open and expressive faces. Exhibition: Maison Européene de la Photographie, Lille, France (November 2016). / Galerie Paul Verbeeck VanDyke, Antwerp, Belgium (Spring 2017). / Loyola University Museum of Art, Chicago, United States (August-November 2017).

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