Thursday, October 23, 2008 | Permalink
Discovered via Andrew Sullivan are Dave Jordano's interior shots of small African-American churches in Chicago.
Writes Jordano:
Churches are typically considered open, public spaces, but African-American storefront churches are by their very nature a more private way of practicing one's faith. In contrast to larger congregations, these churches, which dot the south and west neighborhoods of Chicago, are more like tightly knit family circles. Individualistic and sometimes bordering on the eccentric, members seek out these churches which cater to their specific wants and needs.
To be honest, these churches to me are as foreign as Mali mud mosques and Coptic monasteries — familiar only through PBS ethnography. But these photographs personally struck me, because I used to pass scores of them on the way to and coming back from elementary school. When I was in high school, there was another set lined up on my route.
Just as the Olmsted-designed Washington Park, the hourlong East-West commute along Chicago's seemingly vast gridded terrain, the bungalows and the 7-Elevens, they formed my daily experience of the built environment, my earliest lessons in cultural geography. With 8 years of “field study,” it's probably safe to say that these critically important vernacular institutions (much like the others I mentioned) now inform my design philosophy as a landscape architect. Having never entered one of those churches, however, I could only imagine how it looked inside to satisfy my curiosity, which I often did during the long rides on those steamy, densely packed CTA buses.
So it was the proverbial torrential-flood-of-childhood-memories when I saw the photographs, like what happens when you discover old pictures of your first home or the playground where you used to play or the map and flag designs of the first country that you ever made up after your parents had bought your first Atlas book. A lot of things are brought up to the surface, and you can't help but take a moment to reflect.
It'd be nice to drive along those old streets again, on 55th Street (tree-lined by the Olmsted family) and Western Avenue (the former white-black border of the South side), and measure myself and what I've become with the landscapes of my childhood.
With about two decades more experience in American racial politics and having gone through the community design portion of my college education as a landscape architect, how will these churches now seem to me?
Labels: Chicago, photography
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