Basement Sanctuaries

Samenvatting

Basement Sanctuaries explores the ways in which superintendents decorate basements of apartment buildings in Northern Manhattan, New York City by illuminating the process of migrant adaptation to the metropolis from an intimate perspective. Superintendents are caretakers that usually live in the basements of apartment buildings with ten or more units. They are in charge of the building on behalf of the owner, maintain its public areas and the building's mechanical and technical systems, do repairs in the apartments and deal with the tenants' concerns. Most of the supers in Northern Manhattan are migrants from Latin America or the Caribbean. During the process of apartment hunting in Northern Manhattan, Wurfel discovered these unexpected and innovatively decorated areas. The repeated ... themes of cultural, national, and religious origins suggest that similar impulses drive the decoration process for different supers. However the photographs also show the diverse ways in which supers have personalised their multifunctional living/work spaces and have created a uniquely intimate space in the basement of New York City. Grey Matters Series This is the fourth volume in the Schilt Publishing Grey Matters series following on from Matthew Murray's SKA, Chiara Tocci's Life After Zog, and Lucia Ganieva's Ermitazhniki. Gesche Wurfel, born in Bremerhaven, Germany, has lived in the United States since 2009. She gained a degree in Urban Planning from the University of Dortmund, Germany in 2003 and an MA in Photography and Urban Cultures with Distinction from Goldsmiths, University of London, UK in 2006. She was selected as one of the Bloomberg New Contemporaries in 2007 and has been exhibited internationally. The Basement Sanctuaries series has been awarded three grants by the Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and has been exhibited at Field Projects NYC and the New York Public Library. Basement Santuries will be exhibited at UPI, Dumbo, Brooklyn, NY in June 2014 and at Blue Sky Gallery, Portland, Oregon in September 2014.