An Individual Perspective

Class of 2010

Major: Management Consulting and Photography

Hometown: Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

There are many who speak of “crisis” and of “recession”, but few who understand. Economists, both American and from other nations, make conjectures as to the future of the United States and rally radical change. They speak in the language of statistics; cite noble predecessors such as Marx and Keynes; and through their economic models and standard definitions of “recession” proclaim themselves experts on the topic. Politicians battle each other on Capital Hill, the differences in the parties more evident than ever, at least in regard to their economic perspectives. “Stimulus packages”, “bail out plans”: words coarsely strewn about bills and articles as though these words alone will clot the bleeding nation. What is a recession? What crisis is America suffering? Is it simply falling numbers in certain sectors and climbing percentages in others? How are we, the laymen, to understand America’s current condition?
Merriam-Webster defines a recession as “a period of reduced economic activity”, a simple enough definition for a complex term. Other sources describe a recession as a period of economic “slowdown for a sustained period of time” or a “contraction in the business cycle”. I was recently taught that economic recessions occur about every 13 years in the United States, in varying degrees of severity. If this is true, why was America not better prepared?
From 1981- 1983 a recession shook industries across the board, some companies experiencing up to a 37% drop in revenue: hardly survivable. The Great depression need not even be mentioned. With such experience, why have US leaders not become better prepared to react? Obviously what worked, or superficially appeared to have worked- cite Reagan’s freezing of interest rates, cannot be expected to achieve the same success in every circumstance. Extenuating factors aside, shouldn’t economists, with their models and precedents, and politicians, with their leadership and historical knowledge, be able to propose a viable solution? I am not an expert, nor can I claim to have any extensive understanding of economic policy or theory. I cannot propose a solution, nor do I see it as a simple task. I have not lost faith in the nation’s leaders. I do, however, believe that although the recession is thoroughly understood and pondered by the brightest minds, it is at a significantly distant level. That is to say, the individual experience is ignored. Perhaps with a combination of the macro and the micro, our nation’s experts may find a prosperous middle ground.
Here in lies the challenge. What is the individual experience? This is not an aspect of the nation that can be qualified or quantified. It is unique and it is singular. How then, are we, as suggested earlier, to combine the “micro and the macro”? I do not know. I cannot begin to fathom the individual hardships faced by each American. What I can do, what I am attempting to do, is offer my own understanding of crisis and of the recession in the hope that the images, as singular as they are, may provide a greater perception of the average American. I am not the average American, I have not suffered as others have nor will I. Still, I hope that what I perceive in the simplest terms, what I have come to understand, will hold some overarching meaning that is attributable to not only to myself but to the population as a whole. We are all experiencing the same crisis if not on the same terms.
The images I created are an exploration of my awareness of the crisis. The posters of Obama included in many of them are a reference to the hope that was evident during the election and that continues into the President elect’s administration. Still, there have been failed plans and proposals passed to simply ease the economic loss. People are still losing homes and losing jobs as evidenced by an increase in residents at homeless shelters and high foreclosures. Unemployment rates also continue to rise. The focus of each picture attempts to convey this. The image of a hand resting limply near a house key with blood spilling down the wrist and palm is an attempt to portray the increase in foreclosures and the homeless and the pain associated with this. The images that include people with no faces or blurred faces allude to the exclusion of the individual when considering viable solutions. Despite the hardships faced, the American populace has not lost its strength or its hope. I hope that these photographs are able to convey this unifying sense of faith and illustrate the individual turmoil faced.