tales from a small room

BANKRUPT by Phillip Toledano

“At the beginning of 2001, I started taking pictures of recently abandoned offices and the things people had left behind. This project was more than photography for me. It was economic archeology. America has not suffered such a vertiginous economic collapse since the 1930′s, and I wanted to document the human cost while it was happening. There is something very strange about walking into a recently abandoned office. The heavy, Pompeii-like stillness, punctuated only by the occasional sound of the air-conditioning turning itself on. A coat-hanger waiting patiently for a coat. A limp “happy birthday” balloon on the floor. A drawer stuffed with take-out menus. Everywhere, signs of life, interrupted.” –Phillip Toledano

Phillip Toledano is quickly becoming one of my favourite photographers. I first saw his BANKRUPT series on boing boing last year and have periodically gone back to look over them again and again. In another of his photo essays “Days with my Father” he documents living with his father’s dementia following his mother’s sudden death. This moving tribute to his 98 year old father really affected me.

“There’s something delicate and tenuous in the act of letting your story go in the desire that it will mean as much to a stranger as it does to you.”*

…

“Having read the whole story, I feel stillness and solitude. The kind of mini-metamorphosis you rise from after you’ve just had an experience that’s led to realization. My parents are still younger, but one day they will be old. One day I will be old. I see myself taking part in a loop, both familiar and alien, of childhood and manhood, of life and death, and of the parent becoming the child.”*

I’m not able to say anything about this series that hasn’t already been said perfectly before. Go look at these. And take your time. Read the words.
I haven’t been so moved by a photograph for a long time.

I can only hope to one day be able to create such a beautifully deep personal memoir.

[*quote via shape+color]