Alyssa Miserendino: Our World Insideout

Alyssa Miserendino: Our World Insideout by Aline SmithsonDecember 2, 2012

This week, I am sharing a few of photographers that I met at the Filter Photo Festival in Chicago….

I am of the belief that some of our most profound work comes from things we know. This is certainly the case with Chicago photographer, Alyssa Miserendino. Alyssa is working on a multi-layered, global project that started with circumstances in her own life–the abandonment of her father, and eventually the collapse and loss of the family home. Her project, Our World Insideout, begins with familiar territory and moves to Brazil, New Orleans, and Chicago. Alyssa is about to open an exhibition of this work on December 6th at the Bette Cerf Hill Gallery in Chicago (funding provided by the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation). The work will continue on to the Elmhurst Art Museum for an exhibition that runs from January 18th – mid April.

From a fellowship award from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, to an investigative journalism grant from the Driehaus Foundation, Alyssa continues to pursue personal bodies of work that assemble the ideas of home, memory & our relationships to one another emotionally. This work, in addition to her commercial work, has been widely exhibited and well published.

Our World Insideout

Our World Insideout was born from my young home life that was raw, violent & steeped in displacement and abandonment. The catalyst of this life-long project started with documenting my own abandoned home in 2004, from the inside. Then in 2009, during the economic crash, I found a relation to the familiar emotion of loss & I started documenting other’s homes. I created the imagery with the hope that this project will incite a visual, global dialog concerning the used & unused resources; thus inspiring change. It touches on the many levels of humanity & one of the most sacred places for us : home. Insideout is one word – there is no delineation between what happens behind closed doors & what is communicated to the outside world.

Images from the family home

Our World Insideout: Brazil (2010)

I’ve been to properties with notices posted since 1998, walked though gates with layers of cobwebs, & entered abandoned homes experiencing what is left behind – the day a family & children were evicted, the day the owners ran out of funds to complete construction, the day the owner died & the family neglected to clear the home of the deceased’s belongings. I’ve captured images of a home 15 years forgotten & now surrounded by mansions; held my breath in a house that is a historical site, splattered with feces; & opened a never-ending sea of unlocked doors. However, I have also witnessed what others have built with their own hands, resourced from other people’s garbage. I’ve met people & listened to their stories about how they ended up taking over an abandoned home; picked up a nomad with her fishing pole to visit her train station house & met a woman who built her home around the base of a tree, from found objects.

Our World Insideout: New Orleans

Our World Insideout: Chicago before & after (2012)

What you see here is Chicago from 2009 and Chicago from 2012. Each Diptych has their own story, like each one of us. Here is where another nature is being formed, and hopefully a dialogue for acknowledgements and change – a chance to grow in this world.

Insideout is one word–There is no delineation between what happens being closed doors, and what is communicated to the outside world.