"You must not know 'bout me.." by Tiana Markova-Gold
Posted by Adriana Teresa in FV Features, 2 Comments »Wednesday, September 15th, 2010
I met Nina one early spring evening in 2007. She was standing on the corner by herself, wearing tight jeans and a puffy black fur jacket. I introduced myself to her and began photographing her that evening. Over the next several months, I spent many days and nights with Nina, a street-based sex worker in the desolate, industrial neighborhood of Hunts Point in the South Bronx. I photographed her in her home and on the streets where she works. During this time I met other women working in the streets of Hunts Point, including Babygirl and Sonya. I saw how these women form a community, taking the place of estranged family. One minute they would be comforting one another, the next yelling and throwing punches. I saw how isolated they are from everything outside this small circle and how often they are completely alone, walking the streets day after day and night after night. As I continued to work with these women, it became clear to me how vulnerable they are to abuse and how few resources are available to them. Almost all of the women I met working in the streets of the South Bronx have been in jail numerous times and face problems of drug dependency, health issues and homelessness.
By documenting these women’s lives I hope to counter the de-humanizing imagery of sex workers and drug users that is so prevalent in mainstream media. My goal is not to provide answers but to pose questions and provoke dialogue. I strive to create images from a perspective that transcends the voyeuristic and detached view, portraying these women honestly and with integrity.
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Tina Markova-Gold,
I have followed your work on addiction and I have to say that your work feeds right into that contest philosophy. Your work is nothing new. Only misery, where’s the HOPE.
We, in the Black and Brown community are tired of seeing ourselves as downtrodden human beings.
Thank you, Joe, for taking the time to write a response to this work.
This project has gotten a fair amount of attention and has often been chosen to be featured out of other work I’ve done, as is the case here on Fotovisura. I am and have been very conflicted about the recognition this body of work has received, for very much the same kinds of reasons you stated in your comments. I agree that these photos do not show us something new and that they do portray a lot of sadness and very little hope. I also feel that the media is saturated with images depicting Brown and Black people as “downtrodden human beings”, as I feel that most portrayals of sex workers are negative, simplistic and objectifying.
When I began making photographs in Hunts Point I wanted to make pictures that countered negative stereotypes and helped the viewer relate to the people in the pictures. I wanted people to see the women in the photos as the complex human beings they are and not as objects of pity or contempt. I don’t know how successful I’ve been, though I have tried to be honest and respectful through out the process.
I have struggled with the project, in part because what I found in Hunts Point (at least with the women I got to know) was a tremendous amount of despair, anger and pain and not very much joy or hope. I photographed what the women showed me of their lives and I tried to do so in a way that neither dramatized nor romanticized what was happening.
It was also very important to me to share the work I was doing with the women I photographed so I frequently brought prints for them. I was surprised that they often really liked the pictures and would frame them or make collages of them and put them up on the wall. Their responses to the photos made me feel that I was portraying them in a way they were comfortable with; that they felt I was showing them as they are. I feel a tremendous responsibility to the people I photograph and that means doing my best to show them as they present themselves to me, even (or especially) when that is different from how I would like them to be.
I was compelled to do this project largely because I had been a sex worker myself (and struggled with drug addiction). This was my first serious documentary project, started when I was in the full-time photojournalism program at ICP, and it was important to me to focus on something I related to, a story I could easily find myself in. Since then I have continued working on the subject of sex work, but have gone on to look at it in other contexts and places, including the body of work about Jenna (Other People’s Dirty Laundry – also begun while I was at ICP) and a more recent project about sex workers in Macedonia.
All of this is a work in progress…I am rarely really satisfied with the results of my efforts but I am continuing to learn and trying to remain as open as possible. I have never felt that the project about the women in Hunts Point was complete and I have sometimes thought I shouldn’t show it until it is, but it has been important for me to get feedback along the way. I also really believe that one of the ways this kind of work can be useful is by provoking dialogue, so just the fact that you felt compelled to write a response to it and that I am now writing back, and that all of this is happening in a public forum makes it feel worthwhile. I hope more people will join and continue the conversation.