Currently on view at CEG are four photographs from, Pigeon Hill: Then & Now, by Jeffrey Wolin. It is a project he began working on two decades ago. In his artist statement, for the project, Jeffrey explains, “From 1987-1991, I photographed the residents of Bloomington’s housing projects, an area on the west side known as “Pigeon Hill”. At the time, there was much discussion in politics and the media about the problems of the welfare state and with crime and drug abuse (the crack epidemic was in full swing) and enduring poverty. Since my father grew up in tenements in New York in dire economic straits with a single mother and four brothers, I felt a kind of connection to the problem. I made nearly 3,000 negatives with my medium format camera over nearly five years.”

“In the fall of 2010, a woman was murdered in Bloomington and her picture appeared on the front page of the newspaper. I immediately recognized her as the subject of several of my portraits from many years ago and tried to find out more about her life by speaking with her relatives. I realized that I wanted to locate the residents of the projects that I had photographed earlier and re-photograph them and learn more about how their lives were going, a full generation later.”

Stop by the gallery to see the work and read the text. To see more photographs from the project, click here.