New York, New York
“If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere”, sang Liza Minnelli triumphantly in 1977 in her rendition of New York, New York, a song composed by John Kander with lyrics by Fred Ebb. Often dubbed “the city that never sleeps”, New York embodies the realm of all possibilities: an emblem of the American dream, it conjures up the illusion that anyone can succeed there from scratch. A center of gravity that attracts all types of personalities, the megalopolis has never ceased to convey a golden image, priding itself on its dynamism and open-mindedness. As such, it boasts of being an open door to alternative lifestyles. But in reality, New York is also a breeding ground for social inequality and segregation, both between and within its boroughs. Different social groups and communities live in close proximity, yet are paradoxically separated by their divergent socio-economic levels, their heterogeneous lifestyles and their cultural disparities. At the same time, the separation between these groups is constantly evolving, as a result of phenomena such as gentrification, which has brought about long-term mutations in certain areas such as the Meatpacking District or East Village, or mass tourism, which has tipped the balance in some neighborhoods such as Little Italy. From this perspective, New York is caught in an ambiguous in-between, halfway between individual dream and collective disillusionment: it is this imprecision at its edges, this ambivalence that I have sought to capture in New York, New York. Born out of my regular stays in the megalopolis, this series takes root in a search that stems from a certain way of looking at the city: that of an unobtrusive witness who, while documenting and archiving what she sees through the lens of her camera, questions the staticity and metamorphoses of her immediate surroundings from a sociological, historical and political standpoint. In the end, I have tried to extract the very core of the megalopolis.
