St Marks
Caroline Partridge
The project exhibits a series of portraits taken on St Marks Place, in the East Village neighborhood of New York. St Marks is a well known and almost cliched neighborhood that is past its prime. The series focus on the people in St Marks now. Each portrait contextualizes one person in a location. Through the design technique of contextualization, two identities become one. The portrait series are transformed into a varied personification of St Marks. The first layer consists of a location’s visual detail. The second layer exhibits each portrait in a neutralized background. The third layer is the last, where type defines the portrait’s identity, but the transformation doesn’t end here. Context comes further into play where the portrait series are physically re-located. They are placed in magazine spreads and are redefined as fashion advertisements. The goal of this project is to use design as a transformative tool in identity, through the contextualization of images.