ART MATTERS to Ellenville: Regina Monfort

Regina Monfort Reports: Some Kids Doing Well in 2007.
Monfort followed a group of Puerto Rican and Dominican teen-agers from the mid-1990s on, as they came of age in an environment of pervasive poverty, gang violence and broken families. The boys were consumed with being "tough" as a way of winning respect and manhood; the adolescent girls struggled to cope with the too-early transition to adult responsibilities of child-bearing and parenting (the Baltimore Sun, 2003)

Fast forward.
“Do you want to be in the picture?” Regina Monfort, photographer from Williamsburg Brooklyn, asked of 2 young men, Ricky and Tomar, hanging around the memorial mural she was about to photograph in Williamsburg in 1994 before the community went hyper-hip.
Back up.
“So this is the truth.” writes Michael Powell in the Washington Post this year, “About 8 nanoseconds ago Williamsburg was the national-magazine-certified coolest hood in America, with more vaguely employed white hipsters per square inch than anywhere on the continent. There are 22 clubs and 61 art galleries and enough pubs pouring fine Belgian beers to…”
Proceed forward.
So, Ricky and Tomar agreed to be in Regina’s photograph and when she returned to the neighborhood – a ten block radius - 2 weeks later with prints for them, it was the start of new relationships and a project lasting nine years. Doors opened, conversations born of well earned trust amongst artist and youngsters, and while Regina listened to her instincts she indeed ”found (her) voice as a documentary photographer.” A year later she produced a slide show, with the help of the kids, in the neighborhood handball court park. One hundred people showed up.
"Over time, as the young people of the area allowed me into their lives, I witnessed as much frustration as hope. I have been asked, "Why are you here? Nothing is beautiful here!” These photographs are my answer', says Regina.
An anthropologist, Neil Smith from CUNY is quoted in the above mentioned Washington Post article: “the wealthy are….pushing the poor to the fringes and it’s turbocharged…(while) Artists are disposable – developers just toss them out in hopes they’ll colonize the next ‘hot’ neighborhood."
The scope of narrative running through the documentary essay, “Beyond Grand Street” is broad, candid, layered and explores interactions within public and private spaces- minus the confusion of reactive dramas filtering the impact. It’s a brilliantly sensitive body of work. I can hardly comment on how she might afford her subjects the freedom to appear so natural with a large lens in their faces? Questions I might ask the kids in the photos: What’s it like to live on the fringes of acceptance in an alien culture? Unmistakably cool? How is that so important – more than life itself? Can I ever be as beautiful as my mom? Will my newborn be better armed for survival? What does unreachable feel like?
Who will these beautiful people looking for hope become? What is the point of an article loaded with questions without a hint of answers serving up things humanly possible? Social conundrums amidst a tragically imbalanced global economy darkens their expressions and the city backdrop doesn’t help. Ironically, ethnic social ties, community solidarity, acceptance of differences are both stellar forces in building strong neighborhoods and towns, but these elements are the first to go when it’s time to get serious, profitably speaking: Ethnic foods disappear, proud street culture is crowded by clubs, affordable housing is gone, low cost entertainment….hmm. it’s still low cost, but first you have to buy a $50+ meal. The flavor dries up. And, whallah, the coffee all tastes the same.
Gentrification of Williamsburg started at the waterfront, and spread eastward, affecting this neighborhood most recently. Condos were built, old tenements razed and the social landscape, documented by Regina, was gone. The entire 9 year project was about the “creation of relationships” explains Monfort. “They opened their lives and homes to me…the kids taught me endurance…had (me) listen to hip hop so I could understand where they are coming from….(they, now) call me ‘their photographer’.

Regina shoots in black and white, with her Nikon F3. “Beyond Grand Street” is currently on exhibit at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas, originally sponsored by the Soros Open Society Institute in New York City (www.soros.org) and part of the Moving Walls exhibition series in 2001. Images can be seen online at www.pixelpress.org/. Regina Monfort is French born, studied at the Brussels School of Photography and Hunter College. Her photographs have been widely published and have been included in major collections such as the Library of Congress, which has purchased work and the Yale Art Gallery. In addition to extensive exhibition record and awards, she currently teaches at CUNY La Guardia Community College. Regina has been visiting the upstate New York Warwarsing area for the past 12 years, staying with her close friends Carroll and John Hazard and, lucky for us, contemplating relocating to the area. .