Behind the Door

Rents are on the rise and cities are overcrowded while home spaces are constantly reducing, becoming smaller and more suffocating. In this scenario, warehouse conversions for home living have become a social phenomenon. A hulking century-old redbrick box four stories high towers above an overpopulated metropolis and a swiftly changing neighborhood below. Built just before 1915, the establishment at the center of this story was a factory; it produced cosmetics, cotton, rayon and vinyl for nearly sixty years before closing in the late 1980s. Back then, Williamsburg was a hub for manufacturing but it quickly developed into a desirable area in New York City. In the past fifteen years this part of town has witnessed a fast-paced gentrification process aggressively replacing historical buildings with new luxury condos. The former factory – which was converted into residential units in the early 1990s, is one of the few landmarks which has survived. ‘Behind the Door’ is a photography series capturing the out of the ordinary domestic spaces and characters that inhabit a building facing an uncertain future. Intimate portraits, candid moments and still life images take viewers on an anthropological visual journey through a rapidly vanishing urban way of living. ‘Behind the Door’ is created with a 4 x 5 large format camera and Kodak Portra film.