Orestes Gonzalez’ series, “Disruption,” presents unflinching portraits of people “whose lives were disrupted by forces beyond their control.” Ten large-scale color photographs document the complexity and hardship of immigrant stories here in New York City and abroad. These moving works honor immigrants operating on the borders of society, sometimes homeless, often unemployed, sacrificing the familiarity of family, country, and culture in search of a better life, not simply survival.
Orestes Gonzalez is a photo artist and curator based in Queens, NY. His photography work addresses issues of nostalgia, society, family dynamics, and the political and economic forces changing our country, and the world at large.
Gonzalez has curated over 20 photography shows since 2008, first at the Jeffrey Leder Gallery in Long Island City, NY, then independently, since 2012. His exhibition, “Disruption,” opened at the Center for Photography at Woodstock (CPW) in 2018. His monograph,“ Julio’s House”, is now a traveling exhibition and was recently exhibited at Frederic Snitzer Gallery in Miami and SF Camerawork Gallery in San Francisco (2018, 2019). It is currently on permanent loan at La Fábrica de Arte Cubano, Havana, Cuba. Gonzalez has exhibited extensively in the US, and is in the collections of The Perez Art Museum, Miami, Fototeca, Havana, and the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of NY, The Museum of Modern Art, and Duke University Library, among others. He is currently director of photo-based projects at Culture Lab, Long Island City, Queens.
www.orestesgonzalez.com
@orestesgonzalezfoto
Saturnino | Zaida & Maria Elena | Dewi | Maria & Romana | Leydy | Mario Fulvio | Arjun | Stefan and Sigrid | Gia and Analissa | Amadou
Saturnino
Home Depot, New Jersey
Saturnino, 67, is from Mexico. He left Puebla three years ago. He stands alone in the Home Depot parking lot hoping someone will hire him for the day. He competes with men that are thirty years younger than him and barely makes enough money.
Saturnino never has enough to send back to his wife of forty years.
Zaida & Maria Elena
Queens, NY
Two undocumented students were chosen by a committee of teachers to represent their high school in a national student championship in Texas. Selected for their academic excellence and leadership capabilities, these young women qualified for the event by developing an innovative sustainability project.
Due to the current political climate, school administrators decided it was unsafe for them to fly to Texas. A less qualified, yet documented pair of students went in their place.
Dewi
New York City, NY
Dewi was originally named Hassan. She transitioned 7 years ago after immigrating from Indonesia to Los Angeles, then moving to NYC. When she left Jakarta, her Muslim father disowned her and told her never to come back.
Dewi works as a hair stylist in Brooklyn and sends her father $100 every month.
Maria & Romana
Brooklyn, NY
Maria & Romana are sisters from Guatemala. Between them, they have ten children. When their husbands abandoned them in 1996, they were forced to leave their children with relatives and immigrate to the U.S. Maria cleans houses in Queens. Romana removes asbestos for a company in North Carolina.
They have missed eight weddings, the birth of twelve grandchildren, ten high school and two college graduations.
Leydy
Havana, Cuba
Leydy, 24, worked in the Flower Market in Havana, Cuba. She had been saving and borrowing for 5 years to fly to Panama, planning to travel north through the coyote pipeline, to eventually enter the USA.
The week she arrived in Panama, President Obama changed the “wet foot/dry foot” status of Cuban immigrants arriving in the States. She is technically stranded in Mexico, where she has no status.
Her whereabouts are currently unknown.
Mario Fulvio
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Mario, 31, is originally from Paraguay. He left the capital, Asunción, when he was 16, and hitchhiked to Argentina. An orphan since the age of 12, he has no family that he knows of and has no reason to go back. He lives in Buenos Aires, taking pictures of tourists in La Boca, in front of a tango mural. He doesn’t have formal status and has not applied for one.
He lives day to day.
Arjun
Bremerton, Washington State
This is Arjun, 6. His father, Syed, a naturalized US citizen from Pakistan, was killed while serving as a technical interpreter for the US Navy in Iraq.
He stands in front of a decommissioned ship, just like the one his father was stationed on.
Stefan and Sigrid
Reykjavik, Iceland
Stefan and Sigrid heard a loud pop coming from the cellar of the small house they have lived in for over thirty years. When they descended to the basement level, they discovered the slab had cracked open and a brown sludge was oozing quickly inside. The house was sinking because of the melting permafrost layer their house was built on. // Within a day they were left homeless.
It is estimated that 2.5 million square miles of permafrost (40% of the world’s total) could disappear by the end of this century.
Gia and Analissa
Catania, Sicily
Gia and Analissa play on the shores of the Catania Municipal Beach, a few blocks from where they were born. The city owned power plant looms in the distance creating a surprising contrast.
Analissa’s grandmother died of thyroid cancer at the age of 58. Gia’s mom suffers from extreme bronchitis and is on daily medication.
Thyroid cancer rates are significantly higher in this part of Sicily than anywhere else on the island. The cause is attributed to the smoke and ash emanating from Mt Etna, 30 miles away.
There are some, though, that dispute this theory.
Amadou
Sicily, Italy
Amadou sells inflatables on a public beach in Cefalu, Sicily. He works from 9am to 8pm every day. Each month, after his personal expenses are paid, he sends the balance of his earnings (200-300 euros) to his wife and three children in Somalia.
He hasn’t seen them in 5 years.