Domicology
Gallery under construction
My overall work explores the connections between economic class, ancestry, place, environment, and labor. Combining these themes, my photography practice is part archiving collective memory, part philosophically questioning the societal value systems placed on homes, developments, neighborhoods, and the people who exist within them.
Domicology is the study of the economic, social, and environmental characteristics relating to the life cycle of the built environment. I have been familiar with this term my whole life, even if I never knew the word. I grew up amongst old textile mills along the Merrimac River in Massachusetts, to two working-class parents. My house was gradually falling apart and filthy, its depressed state representative of the slow bubbling crisis that my parents were weathering. They then both passed away in 2017. Our neighborhood saw the rises and falls of each recession and housing bubble, while my family faced worse economic prospects.
Internally and externally, the cycles of death and rebirth through the built environment called me to question American capitalism. By photographing neighborhoods in flux, buildings being torn down, and an old Victorian house transforming into a condo, I am reminded of my own home. I am reminded of the razor’s edge many of us sit between flourishing and ruin.
I combined several smaller projects in this gallery to be under the umbrella of Domicology. Click on each image to learn more about the work behind it.