Juan Giraldo
Grant St, from Of Late, A Letter to Paterson, 2022-23
Photogravure, 11" x 14"
Of Late, A Letter to Paterson
In the summer of 1981, my family found its home on East 17th St in Paterson's Riverside neighborhood, New Jersey. Both my grandparents and father toiled at the Kalkstein Silk Mill in Bunker Hill, an area predominantly industrial and traversed by the Passaic River. Paterson, a city inhabited by 157,794 people, harnessed the power of the Passaic River and its Great Falls, becoming a pivotal player in the industrial revolution. It gained the moniker "Silk City" due to its multitude of silk mills. The city's motto, "spe et labore," translates to "with hope and labor."
For most of my life, Paterson has been my vantage point. While the city has always played a role in my artistic endeavors, it was primarily in a referential capacity. The following images embody my affectionate tribute to the city and an avenue to bestow upon it the attention it has long deserved.
These images represent contemplations of the sights that have shaped my personal history, visual language, and ideology. Within them stand tributes to its champions, native progeny, the Great Falls, the industries that have since been relegated to obscurity, the toiling populace, governmental edifices, and decaying structures.
Through this work I hope to echo the words of William Carlos Williams: "The past above, the future below, and the present pouring down: the roar, the roar of the present, a speech-is, of necessity, my sole concern." This compilation serves as my visual declaration of admiration for all the elements that constitute Paterson's identity.
ARTIST BIO
Juan Giraldo is a photographer currently living and working in Brooklyn, NY; he received his MFA from Columbia College’s photography department. He was born in Manizales, Colombia, and raised in Paterson, New Jersey. He received his BFA with a concentration in photography from William Paterson University. Giraldo’s artistic practice explores, verisimilitude through Identity, Dignity & Allegory. This is done through long-term photo projects where he looks at the personal lives/spaces of working-class people of color. His work explores the personal interior spaces of working people, (in particular the employees of Great Lakes Reload and his family in Paterson, New Jersey) the textures of a working life and the banal indicators of domesticity that shaped his view of the world, both as a first-generation immigrant and laborer. In addition to this work, he continues to photograph his family as part of an ongoing project in which he looks at his relationship with his parents.
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