Rochester 585/716: Postcards from America: Postcards from America
- Submitting institution
-
University of Ulster
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 86073960
- Type
- A - Authored book
- DOI
-
-
- Publisher
- Aperture Foundation
- ISBN
- 9781683950943
- Open access status
- -
- Month of publication
- September
- Year of publication
- 2015
- URL
-
https://ulster.sharepoint.com/:b:/s/REF2021/ESK4Z5E3u5lFgwIWplGIso8BQpLjFM-RFWL-2y0x1XTrMA?e=jOR6Xt
- Supplementary information
-
-
- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
-
9
- Research group(s)
-
D - Art, Conflict & Society
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- Yes
- Additional information
- Rochester 585/716 , is a research project originating from a much broader five-year experimental collaborative project entitled Postcards from America. Wylie spent several weeks prior to arriving in Rochester, New York, researching the architectural urban planning of the city. For nearly twenty years architecture has been the mode of photographic representation that Wylie has utilized to inform political and social changes. Wylie’s contribution to this element of the Postcards from America project was two-fold. He was coeditor of this volume and his published photographic research explores a phenomenon that affects the physical shape of some cities in North America – the “Doughnut” effect. It consists of the concentration of urban activity on the ring road and the parallel physical disappearance of all that remains inside. Study reveals how the city of Rochester, by 1838 was the largest flour producing city in the United States and became known as America’s first “boom town”. By the 1960’s Rochester expanded, and the inner parts of the city became overcrowded, and thus populations started to move to the outer skirts of the city, where businesses followed, creating wealth segregation. Rochester is regarded today as the poorest mid-sized city in America. Through further research Wylie proceeded to make an architectural photographic survey of 80% of the city centers, largely empty architecture. Wylie’s methodology of working from an elevated position created an overview of the city’s layout, and the visible scars of this phenomenon.
The photographic survey was made over a three-week period, shortly after Eastman Kodak Company, (based in Rochester), declared bankruptcy in 2012. Wylie’s research ask’s us to consider the challenges of city center regeneration, the consequences of wealth segregation, and the role of photography as a tool in memory and preservation.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -