Dystopia examines transient societies in San Francisco, California. The project concerns itself with the poverty that takes place in this city. The large population of indigent people in San Francisco is estimated at around 2,771. People who are impoverished seek shelter under the overpass of the 101 and 280 highway located between Market and Mission Streeets. This area provides shelter and for some a home. The people live under the bridge are only a section of this estimate.
Dystopia utilizes the built environment as a backdrop and metaphor for the larger social structures that create conditions that destabilize individual lives. To accomplish this aim, over the course of a year, I established rapport with these people who provided permission to photograph their living conditions and the individuals themselves. These images attempt to capture the cold emptiness of their isolated environment and the eerie beauty that these people inhabit at night. Dystopia aims to question the social conditions that create poverty and the material structures that serve as a site where these individuals seek refuge while simultaneously sustaining social detachment to this ongoing global phenomenon.
