University Heights, Bronx 1990

Editor: So, here we have Madoka Takagi's "University Heights, Bronx" from 1990, a gelatin-silver print. It’s… bleak, almost post-apocalyptic. Piles of tires in the foreground, a dilapidated building behind. What symbols or meanings jump out at you in this image? Curator: The tires, of course, are powerful symbols. Consider the wheel – historically representing cycles, movement, progress. But here, piled and discarded, they become icons of stagnation, even decay. Doesn't the monochrome heighten that sense of abandonment? Does this jive with any themes relevant to you as a student? Editor: Definitely. The monochrome adds to the sense of decay. I suppose I never really considered tires to be so symbolic, but here they remind me of industrial excess. All that potential energy just...wasted. Curator: Precisely! It is interesting how Takagi positions these wasted tires in the fore. It makes us contemplate waste, both literal and figurative. Notice also how she opposes ideas. Do you notice the faint building behind it? And the suggestion of structures in the distance. Consider the discarded tires as holding on to those traditions or creating pathways for our society. What pathway might be shown by the monochrome itself, recalling a long established tradition? Editor: It does offer such contrast, showing how a tradition can provide many diverging views of present realities, not just recycling the same narratives. The contrast is not merely bleak, but offers new beginnings too! Curator: A powerful insight! Perhaps the photograph suggests a visual echo, old structures slowly consumed and revised by contemporary society. Perhaps a statement that waste itself contains a kind of raw potential, holding the past while also opening us to reinterpretation. Editor: I now view those tired wheels with renewed insight – carriers of forgotten dreams and possible future trajectories, not only junk! Thanks for expanding the wheel of understanding. Curator: An apt summary, from old to new we go!