Ayda Gragossian's series 'North North South' documents Los Angeles' often overlooked spaces through black and white photography. The collection spans four years, featuring images of store windows, parking lots, and suburban homes. Gragossian illustrates the idea that the essence of a city is revealed when taking time to observe one's surroundings, highlighting the complexities of beauty, neglect, and inequality in the urban landscape. The project begins as a personal journey and moves away from the glamorous portrayal of LA, instead focusing on its working-class realities.
In a place teeming with dreams and expectations, a single sign or building can disrupt the pattern of conformity, reminding us that the true essence of any city is best appreciated when we slow down and truly observe our surroundings.
Contradictions collide, and beauty and neglect, nostalgia and impermanence, intimacy and distance, exist side by side.
The title collates the main ideas behind the series, such as the quintessential American condition of traversing freeways that perpetuate inequality and the power of photography to transform the banality of everyday life into the poetic.
Gragossian's black and white photographs are devoid of people, an aesthetic choice that emphasizes the city's contradictory characteristics.
Collection
[
|
...
]