The photographer Future Mata’s love for the Decrease East Aspect is familial and tender; the neighborhood is each her residence and her muse. Actually: “It’s greater than my residence,” she advised Hyperallergic. “It’s part of me.” Born in San Antonio, Texas, Mata grew up in New York Metropolis, the place she and her mom hung out within the shelter system earlier than transferring to the Lillian Wald Homes, a New York Metropolis Housing Authority (NYCHA) venture on Avenue D. Mata — whose mom is an artist, and father and late aunt each photographers — lives there at present, the condo’s partitions painted quite a lot of heat colours. Her ongoing Decrease East Aspect Yearbook venture, introduced at Abrons Arts Middle as Decrease East Aspect Yearbook: A Dwelling Archive, is definitely a report, but it surely’s additionally a love music.
The LES Yearbook Challenge started in 2023, impressed by a yearbook class Mata taught at Metropolis-As-Faculty Excessive Faculty, her alma mater, after which a black and white images course she supplied to neighbors and her college students on the Decrease Eastside Women Membership. “I took over a cellular airstream darkroom, an open-door area the place neighbors would cease by, share tales in regards to the neighborhood, and mirror on how a lot it modified,” she mentioned. “That have impressed the inspiration of the venture.” Within the airstream, she linked with Rosa Lee Rodriguez, Nadia Ramnarine, and Maylyn “Zero” Iglesias, neighbors, pals, and artists with whom she’d talk about the realm’s hypergentrification and the chance of NYCHA’s impending privatization. To defend and memorialize their quickly altering residence, they opted to make a collaborative yearbook, one that may, Mata defined, “honor the legacy and spirit of public housing residents right here on the Decrease East Aspect. It’d be a testomony to us simply being right here — being heard and remembered.” They distributed flyers (“Calling All NYCHA Residents: Share Your Story, Share Your Roots!”) across the neighborhood, and Mata hosted workshops, inviting LES residents to share their private histories, household images, and recollections.
Making the yearbook put Mata in nearer contact along with her neighbors. The finished first version, made with the assist of a collaborative yearbook committee, combines their collages, archival photographs, and love notes to the place with Mata’s portraits, lovingly monitoring the LES’s historical past (in addition to introducing every contributor). A Dwelling Archive brings its pages to life, with photos and thematic excerpts positioned in a gallery context. The monumentality of NYCHA’s buildings is alluded to right away on the exhibition’s entrance, with a wall-sized vinyl of Mata’s “Brick by Brick” (2023), a black and white {photograph} of the Jacob Riis, Lillian Wald, and Baruch Homes, shot from above. It’s overlaid with a small picture of yearbook contributor Cheryl Kirwan, shared from her personal archives — a mirrored image of the venture’s collaborative strategy. It’s 1981, and he or she’s dressed impeccably in canary yellow, beaming.
The show upstairs options contributions by yearbook members and some architectural motifs that recur all through the venture, together with hallways, benches, and doorways. There’s a row of images of busy metropolis benches over the a long time, drawn from the photographers’ archives. An precise metropolis bench, tagged by artists Al Diaz and Charlie Doves, sits throughout from filmmaker Aicha Cherif’s quick documentary, “HEAT” (2025), a portrait of three LES ladies going through the privatization of their houses. There are photos by Kirwan, Maria Amaro, Zakaria Fofana, and different contributors of pals, households, and constructing residents posing in stairwells and entryways, illustrating the best way condo life, particularly in NYCHA housing, encourages non-public areas to increase into public areas. The lounge, and the household who occupies it, extends past the door — talking of which, a burgundy one, with a peephole you possibly can look by to see extra photos, can also be on view as a part of Mata’s The Doorways of NYCHA (2020) collection. Throughout the early days of the pandemic, Mata delivered groceries with the Baruch Homes Tenants Affiliation Pantry; she’d spend idle time ready for her neighbors to open their doorways, which had been adorned with vacation decorations, notes (“PRESS HERE”), or doodles. “I discovered myself studying about [my neighbors] by the distinctive methods they’d adorned, earlier than I even met them,” she mentioned.
Mata’s expertise with the Tenants Affiliation prompted her to study extra in regards to the privatization of NYCHA underneath the Everlasting Affordability Dedication Collectively (PACT) and Rental Help Demonstration (RAD) initiatives. In response to Save Part 9, a tenant-led coalition, RAD conversion and personal administration have elevated the price of utility payments, restricted entry to repairs, and eliminated succession rights. Developments underneath non-public administration skilled six occasions as many eviction makes an attempt, with general eviction charges thrice greater than the typical. The yearbook options photos from protests led by NYCHA residents, their indicators and masks emblazoned with calls to motion and warnings: “Give NYCHA the cash,” “Public Housing is on Life Help.” The present itself, mentioned Mata, will not be merely about love, but additionally advocacy.
The previous is likely to be the perfect catalyst for the latter. Alongside Abrons’s partitions are vinyl phrases, a part of a chunk entitled Love Letter to the LES (2023–25), by varied contributors; they’re drawn from each the yearbook and its attendant workshops. These are the phrases of the individuals who take care of and form the LES, and who, if in a position to keep there, will proceed to nurture it finest. “We come collectively as a neighborhood,” the notes learn. “Thanks, L.E.S., for making me a champion and never a loser.” “Once I consider household, it’s you I consider.”
