Roy Baizan

Mott Haven

Mott Haven is a neighborhood in the South Bronx made up of residential houses, NYCHA Projects, and an industrial waterfront that is ground zero for the gentrification of the Bronx.

Largely made up of Latinx and Black residents with a culture defined by multiple generations, the current population of 52,000 is being challenged today by real estate developers aggressively moving to rebrand the community and displace them. This project documents the people, landscapes, and stories of those who see their neighborhood in transition.

Mam’s Babies

My grandmother had 16 children, 58 grandchildren, 112 great-grandchildren, 158 great-great-grandchildren. She’s 94, and has been in Oakland, California, since 1945. Mama’s Babies takes a look at my family’s migration from sharecropping farms in Louisiana, to Oakland, California.

We developed vast networks of extended family centered on matriarchal figures. I combine my photography, and my grandmother’s archival images, to work against the erasure of our narrative.

Warawar Wawa

Warawar Wawa (Son of the Stars) in the Aymara language, is a re-contextualization of Antoine Saint Exupéry’s book Le Petit Prince for contemporary Andean culture.

The project is realized in the form of a photo-book, which accompanies the first literary translation of the original French text into the Aymara language. In addition to words and photographs, the photo-book also includes new drawings made by the author to present self-reflective narratives, and to bring about the spirit of a children’s book.

The term Chi’xi (gray color) is an essential part of the project because it is considered the starting point. This term, extracted from the Aymara language, alludes to an undetermined color, resulted from two juxtaposed tissues. Contrary to homogeneous ideas regarding collective identities, Warawar Wawa invites us to look at heterogeneous concepts through a fantastic universe located in Bolivian landscapes, valleys, and salt flats.

In Desert of Wetlands

Iran is suffering from a socio-economic drought, where water demand exceeds the natural water supply. My country is facing a severe and protracted water crisis and desertification, as lakes and rivers once-fertile, become barren.

The Hamoun wetlands, located in the largest Iranian province, Sistan-Balouchestan in southeastern Iran, are transboundary wetlands on the border of Iran-Afghanistan, which used to be the seventh-largest international lagoon, and the largest sweet water lake in Iran. The wetlands have turned to a sea of sand in the recent fifteen years due to drought, climate change, poor water management, prevention of water flow from Afghanistan, and disputes over granting water rights to Iran from Afghanistan.

The Hamoun wetlands that once covered an area of 4,000 square kilometres, and held communities dating back 5000 years, is now an environmental calamity. My project explores the environmental, social, and economic devastation wrought by desertification in the southeast region of Iran, as once fertile lakes and rivers become irreversibly degraded.

Hamoun wetlands desiccation had dire consequences for Sistan and Baluchestan Province, home to 2.8 million people, mostly Sunnis. Many people lack basic access to clean water, food, and education, subsisting on government handouts. With large-scale unemployment, some have turned to smuggling fuel and drugs, and about 30% of the people in Sistan-Balouchestan have migrated to the suburbs of other cities.

My project’s audience is people in and out of my country. Some of them have never thought of a water crisis before, or have never experienced the effects of a water crisis, but for various reasons resist connecting with it. By covering and telling stories, I want to raise awareness of subjects to change public attitudes.

Photoville’s Emerging Artists to Watch

Featuring: Roy Baizan Adrian Burrell River Claure Solmaz Daryani

Curated by: James Estrin

Locations

• #Emerging Artists
• #Group Show