BRIDGE 2 THE AUTHENTIC CITY PHOTO ESSAY
Through this project of capturing both the inauthentic and authentic, we discovered how the film, “The Devil Wears Prada”, has truly influenced our perceptions of New York City. Despite coming from different backgrounds and places, we are all yet connected on the notion that the film has failed to capture the city correctly as it has only focused on the wealth and extravagance that the city offers. When visiting our three locations, we were astonished by the combination of the rich and the poor living in the same areas but being completely unaware of each other’s lives. While one person was enjoying expensive dinner at the St Regis Hotel, another was struggling to feed themselves and find shelter for the night. That is why we decided to display our photo essay in two separate layers of the “rich” and the “poor”. The top layer are a set of photos that show the inauthentic side of New York City, focusing on the photos we took at the St Regis Hotel, one of the most expensive hotels in New York. This is printed on transparent vellum paper. These set of photos will layer over the bottom layer of photos that show the authentic side of New York City that we are exposed to, focusing on the photos we took of the struggling and the homeless. The transparent layer represents the inauthenticity of media images shown in the Devil Wears Prada and also how we often are blinded by what is around us. We also wanted to create an interactive display that forces the viewer to take effort in lifting up the photo to see the authentic. Therefore, the display is purposefully presented as 3×3 to create a set up of a window to convey the idea of seeing reality.
