This feature began with a simple premise: document white and black things in Los Angeles. I had no intention other than to see if a pattern emerged from working within these restrictions. I’ve had an ongoing love affair with the elements of the Los Angeles cityscape since I moved here: the lines and grid, concrete and marble, columns and monoliths we call home. Characterized by transience, Los Angeles occupies a unique niche in the American cultural landscape. A place where dreams come true; we come here hoping somehow to be transformed. My goal with this project was to document this feeling of rift, of a collective cleaving away from the known towards the void where future lives. Yet these images have also captured something else: a shape, a structure, a place of emptiness. This series speaks to what is inside and behind all the dreams. If you listen, the void speaks.
You can find the location for each photograph in our handy list below:
1. Van, Arts District
2. Bag, Elysian Park
3. Parking Garage, Historic Core
4. Building, Bunker Hill
5. Found Sculpture, Bunker Hill
6. Mannequins, Pico
7. Window, Highland Park
8. Cheap Suits, Broadway
9. View, Fashion District
10. Detail, Observatory
11. Perspective, DTLA
12. Texture, DTLA
13. Parking Lot, Koreatown
14. View, Wilshire
15. Cactus, Highland Park
16. Window, Koreatown
17. Skyline, Grand Park
18. Structure, DTLA
19. Wave, Hollywood
20. Half Light, Koreatown
21. Rainbow, Hollywood
22. Structure, Arts District
23. Monument, Pershing Square
24. Bank, Koreatown
25. Tree, Pico
26. Van, Arts District
27. Towers, Financial District
28. Detail, Disney Hall
29. Construction, Broad Museum
30. Ski Mex, Highland Park
31. Scene, Skid Row
32. Curtains, Hollywood
33. Squares, Hollywood
Katharine Hargreaves, our June Guest Editor, is a writer, designer, and social activist. You might recognize her name from the radical journal Whole Beast Rag, of which she was co-founder. She’s a former artist at Think Tank Gallery, and you can find her portfolio at www.projektkatharine.net.