American realities
By: Joakim Eskildsen, photographs ; Natasha Del Toro, texts ; afterword: Barbara Kiviat
Contributors: Toro, Natasha del, writer of supplementary textual content; Kiviat, Barbara, writer of afterword
Edition: First edition.
Published: 2015
Language: eng
ISBN-13: 9783869307343
Subjects: Portrait photography; Portraits; Artistic Photography; Poor; Catalogs
Description: In 2010, more Americans lived below the poverty line than at any time since 1959, when the U.S. Census Bureau began collecting this data. In 2011, Kira Pollack, Director of Photography at 'TIME', commissioned photographer Joakim Eskildsen to capture the growing crisis, affecting nearly 46.2 million Americans. Based on census data, the places with the highest poverty rates were chosen when Eskildsen, together with journalist Natasha del Toro, traveled to New York, California, Louisiana, South Dakota, and Georgia over seven months to document the lives of the people behind the statistics. The people Joakim Eskildsen has portrayed are people who struggle to make ends meet, who have lost their jobs or homes, and often live in unhealthy conditions. They usually remain invisible in the American society to which the myth of the American Dream is still very strong. Many of the people held there was no such dream anymore, merely the American Reality.