Name: Gesche Würfel
Portfolio: Basement Sanctuaries
Age: 36
Nationality: German
Place of residence: New York City, USA
Artist Statement
Basement Sanctuaries explores the ways in which superintendents decorate basements of apartment buildings in Northern Manhattan by illuminating the process of migrant adaptation to the metropolis from an intimate perspective.
In many ways, basements are special sanctuaries for supers and their families. Supers often live in basements that are hidden from the public and from visitors, which creates a certain form of privacy. However, the basement is also a space of work for supers and their environment is on display for the residents of the building. Under these circumstances, the supers’ decorations function as a territorial claim over the basement’s semi-public/private space.
Most of the supers in the neighborhood are migrants from Latin America or the Caribbean, and images from their home countries might connect their new home to a past they have left behind. This can be especially important given the grueling nature of their work and the difficulty of establishing oneself in New York City.
The repeated themes of cultural, national, and religious origins suggest that similar impulses drive the decoration process for different supers. However, the photos also show the diverse ways in which supers have personalized their work and living spaces and created a uniquely intimate space in the basement of New York City.
The images encourage people to think in new ways about how space functions in New York City apartment buildings and broaden our understanding of the relationship between semi-public/private space, migration, and the everyday landscape.
The images were shot on film with medium format cameras. Only available light was used to show the conditions the supers work and live in.
Basement Sanctuaries will be published by Schilt Publishing in the Spring of 2014.
My approach to photography
I am a visual artist whose practice is primarily photographic. I am drawn to unusual, derelict, mundane, and often overlooked spaces. My background in spatial planning is evident in my photography through my focus on the relationship between space, human (inter)action, and nature. In particular, I tend to investigate the physical manifestation of underlying social and urban processes by exploring notions of place as well as the relationships humans have with their environment (in urbanscapes as well as cultural and natural landscapes). I am usually inspired by the surroundings of my daily life. Having lived in many different places and settings, from rural to suburban to urban in Germany, England, and the U.S., my projects are international but still very site-specific. My practice is research-based and has a strong theoretical foundation, which enables me to place my work not only in an art context but also beyond, e.g. urban planning, sociology, or anthropology.
