Zachary Taylor and Professor Daniel Barney, Department of Visual Arts
The renovation of deteriorated urban neighborhoods, otherwise known as gentrification, has been happening in Richmond, Virginia’s inner-city neighborhoods at an alarming rate over the last four years. This renewal has brought explicit benefits to those in its reach. For one, it has helped restore neglected and under-managed properties. It has also brought added social and cultural amenities to the city as a whole. These changes have come with a price however, as Richmond’s gentrified inner-city districts inevitably experience drastically higher rent and property taxes as a result of escalating property values. These surges in value have brought proportionally high taxes with them, and many of the city’s lower-class can’t afford the increase. In 2005, over 2,400 homeowners throughout the city filed for property tax relief (Holmberg, “Tax”). As one native of the city reported to The Richmond Times Dispatch: “Some of these people get [Social Security] checks. They can’t pay for this. [Revitalization]’s really going to make property values go up. They’re running the [poorer] blacks out of the neighborhood” (Holmberg, “Taming”).
In response to Richmond’s shifting demographic, I visited the city in May 2008 to photograph the widespread abandonment (and eventual renovation) of its lower-income districts. While there, I consulted with my sister-in-law, Anne Barrett, who works as an Architectural Historian for a preservation firm in the city. Together we visited the changing areas of Richmond as she explained the recent history of each district. Through my association with her, and through the preparatory research I had conducted before my visit, I was able to take informed and relevant documentary photographs of the city’s shifting anthropologic landscape.
While in Richmond, I took over 800 photographs using a variety of different cameras. While most of the images were captured digitally, I also photographed with an antique Kodak Brownie box camera, and a 4×5 inch large-format film camera. The project’s final incarnation, which has always been envisioned as a scholarly presentation, will draw heavily from the film negatives.
As alluded to above, Professor Barney and I proposed to present this project in a scholarly setting as arts-based research. We wanted to affirm to a group of our peers that visual art can be used as a research medium, through which specific social and anthropologic questions can be addressed. In July 2008, my mentor and I wrote a proposal to the National Art Educators Association in hopes of presenting the project at their 2009 national conference. I am pleased to announce that our proposal has been accepted. Mr. Barney and I will be co-presenting my photographs and discussing the power of art as research at the 2009 NAEA National Conference in Minneapolis in April.
I would like to make my gratitude known to the BYU ORCA office. This grant will make it possible for me to present my work to hundreds of working professionals from across the country. This project has afforded me the chance to work with an admired professor, and by doing so, it has helped me crystallize my own artistic practice. I look forward to presenting my images in Minneapolis this coming April, and I am confident that more presentations and publications will come as a result.
Scholarly Sources
- Holmberg, Mark. “The Taming of Dodge City; Gentrification Spells End for Old-Time Spot.” Richmond Times Dispatch 23 March 2005, City ed.: B1+
- Holmberg, Mark. “Tax Flood Has Many Struggling to Keep Their Heads Above Water.” Richmond Times Dispatch 11 September 2005, City ed.: B1+