I, Manahatta is an exploration of the perception of place at a transformative moment in New York City’s physical and cultural landscape (1997-2014)—from the late 90s building boom, to the paused constructions after 9/11 and the recession, and culminating in the city’s accelerating luxury homogenization.

The series documents not only the dramatic physical shifts in the cityscape, but the nuanced dimensions of how we, as spectators,
perceive and interact with the complex topography of our urban sphere on social, economic, and physical levels. It imagines the city landscape as an organic entity of complex and vibrant histories that reflect back a version of our selves. I was moved by this intimate dynamic and by our passionate desire to, as Baudelaire wrote, “be in our environment, in the heart of the multitude…in the midst of the fugitive and the infinite.”