HARLEM i(nF)LUX

Words and Images by Tau Battice

One spring evening in 2008, I was discussing the so-called winds of change blowing through upper Manhattan with my Building Word Power class at CUNY when a distraught student shouted, "They're taking our neighborhood!" The ensuing conversation about gentrification and change prompted tears from my students and my own resolution to document what the people of Harlem were saying about their community. And so I set about cataloging Harlem through the faces of Harlemites—and Harlemites of every stripe.

Harlem has always been "live," flashy and vibrant—and sometimes precarious. On my first Sunday in Harlem 22 years ago, I heard a barrage of gunshots as I stood in a city park. I ran for my life then, but I had a hearty laugh afterwards. "Wow, is this how they welcome people to Harlem?" I asked myself.

Nonetheless, I became smitten, and Harlem remains one of my favorite places. It has the amplified liveliness of my home community in St.Kitts, which I left in the early 1990s when my mother immigrated to the states. As a photographer, I look for the noble commoners, the grassroots. I like grit. Much gold can be mined from grit—if we take the care to look.

Harlem is a place where people possess, and broadcast, a strong sense of self in the face of a bullying mainstream. I gravitate towards their style and self-determination. Sometimes I'll stand on a corner for hours just observing people passing by and when the energy is right, I'll approach a potential subject not just to photograph, but also to learn. I’m drawn to the dynamics of power and the interplay of vulnerability and strength.

Sometimes, we talk for an hour or more before we make a portrait. The project has been an ongoing confirmation and reconfirmation of our shared humanity. We are all striving for the best life. We all want our children to excel. I continually learn that even as I must evaluate and judge, I must also become less judgmental in regarding this other man or woman with whom I share this planet.

I strive to convey the deity within all of my subjects. But ultimately, I think of what each portrait will say ten, 25, 50 years from now. Perhaps the viewer will see that Harlem isn't as monotone and monolithic as many might assume. It may still be the storied Black Mecca, but I have, for the most part, captured the changing ethnic and demographic diversity of the community. More than anything though, I hope I have captured the consistent dignity and humanity of 21st-century Harlem.

The Harlem: I(nF)lux" book project solo exhibition runs throughout February at Rio II Gallery in New York City. The opening reception, on Friday, Feb. 7th, runs from 6-9 pm.