At first, being instructed to visit the last stop on the 7 train didn’t really seem like it would transport me into another world. However, after leaving the platform, I quickly realized the reason I had never been to Flushing was because it wasn’t a space made for me. My experience was one of displacement-surrounded by signs in other languages, non-English speakers, peculiar smells-I forgot I was in New York. I walked around gawking like a tourist, even though this is the place I call home.
I took two trips to Flushing. I went the first time without a camera just to scope out the landscape and experience a world without a disruptive lens. I tasted foods, ran into a street market, collected fliers. It was fulfilling. I went back a week later with a camera which yielded a completely different experience. Without a camera, I blended into a place that wasn’t my own. My tourism was hidden. With a camera, I stuck out, felt dirty, intrusive, exploitative. Every time I went to take a picture I would get scolded. I turned into a creepy sneak, a secretive photographer, a peeping tom.
Some photos turned out nicely. Most photos are blurry from trying to conceal the camera mid-photo. The nice photos were of things, because unlike people, they cannot scold you for photography. This world of off-limits photography threw me off so much I started to scold myself-giving negative voices to anything I took pictures of before it could be hurled at me. I pictured scarves telling me to fuck off, ears of corn holding their husks in front of their golden faces just to spite me.
POWERPOINT: NO PHOTO
