Po-Town Up & Down

Before the Eyewitness News, there is the eyewitness account — if we are observers of our communities, if we keep our heads up while walking our streets, the sociological and economic stories of change and struggle will unfold before us. The human details that reveal these stories at play are waiting to be seen. Onaje Benjamin’s camera is the watchful eye of Poughkeepsie, N.Y. In a new show on the second floor of Kent Art Association in Kent, Conn., Benjamin’s monochrome street photography depicts the anatomy of a city as colorful as New York, worn down but alive in its conflict, hardship, activism, and joy.

Little ironies are glimmers of humor peeking through the indignities of existence. In “Gentrification,” a transient cyclist hauling garbage bags of cans wheels by a for-profit hair school that’s sprouted, fungus-like, in the defunct carcass of a Classical Revival bank building. In “Band of Brothers,” two middle-aged Black soldiers, furrowed brows and cigarettes sparking between their fingers, slump on a front stoop, while a lawn figurine of a saluting marine is chained like a bicycle to a porch post — they're wary of what can be stolen. The neon lights of the retro chrome diner, gleaming across a dark winter sky like an Americana "Nighthawks," may beckon you in, while the COVID-precautionary plastic bubbles keep customers eating outside. A faceless mannequin in a kitschy storefront finds its outfit du jour in a Black Lives Matter sweatshirt, soon to be swapped out.

Benjamin's photography is a stance against the erasure of working class dignity, of historic neighborhood character, and the distinct Black culture of urban Upstate New York.

Gentrification Photo courtesy the artist

Gentrification Photo courtesy the artist