Todd R. Darling: American Idyll
On Broadway, A couple walks along Broadway, downtown. © Todd R. Darling
Todd R. Darling’s American Idyll explores the concept (or arguably, the fallacy) of the American dream, as witnessed through the experiences of the country’s first industrial city community.
Having spent most of his adult life living and working in Hong Kong as a documentary photographer, Darling returned in 2016 to his hometown of Wayne, NJ, which neighbors Paterson. With the original intention of documenting the concentrated pockets of violence scattered throughout the small city, the artist’s focus has shifted in the five years since he began the endeavor. Inspired by the work of local poets Allen Ginsburg and William Carlos Williams, for whom Paterson symbolized the “American myth,” Darling immersed himself in the city’s history, uncovering a deep, troubling tradition of corrupt governance and false promises.
Boy at Peace March. A boy attended a peace march on Palm Sunday that went from the First to the Fourth Ward. The wards are locked in an ongoing feud known as “up the hill, down the hill” due to their geographic proximity to each other. Gubernatorial candidate Phil Murphy attended the event.
© Todd R. Darling
People Power. A black pride rally on the steps of city hall.
© Todd R. Darling
In 1791, Alexander Hamilton, then the first United States Secretary of the Treasury, founded the city of Paterson to serve as the cradle of the industrial revolution. Powered by the nearby Great Falls of the Passaic River, Paterson was, in theory, to be the beacon of innovation and prosperity to the nation. Indeed, with ample employment opportunities available in its factories, the city became something of a Mecca for immigrant workers, which accounts for its diverse make-up of fifty different ethnic groups today. Nevertheless, financial shortcuts in the city’s planning, and shifts in the national economy over the centuries that followed, have left Paterson’s residents abandoned, wrestling with poverty, unemployment, and an ever-worsening fight with drug abuse. That the city’s 150,000 residents are crammed into just eight square miles, making Paterson the second-most densely populated city in the US, has only exacerbated issues.
Shrine. Shrines for murder victims are commonly found along the sidewalks throughout the city. © Todd R. Darling
Shot entirely in black and white, the series has a timeless quality. There is a palpable sense of a city on pause, of a community trapped in a post-industrial state with declining prospects. The town feels at once both exhausted and restless, an air of stagnant dissatisfaction simmering beneath the surface.
In Boy at Peace March, Darling captures a young boy in front of a crowd, dressed in a weather-beaten NASA jacket, in front of a sign bearing an image of Martin Luther King Jr. His brow furrowed, the boy stares off into the middle distance beyond the camera lens, with an expression of dejected defiance familiar to the people of the city.
The Barber. Jesse (93) looks out of his brabershop window into the 4th ward. A neighborhood notorious for gun violence. The barbershop was opened in the 1940's and has remained virtually unchanged. However, Jesse has witnessed several murders in front of his shop and the neighborhood deteriorate. © Todd R. Darling
Several of the abandoned mills are occupied by people in between homes. In Bob, A Veteran in his Furnace, we meet the man these occupants call, “the mayor.” Working odd jobs, Bob has made a home for himself in the old asbestos-lined furnace of a former Colt revolver manufacturing factory. He says he prefers life here over the beds offered at the shelters. In this image we find him alone amid a carefully maintained collection of bottles and crates, squinting through the dark at the solitary headlamp lighting the room.
Crime Scene Investigator. A crime scene investigator working a murder scene at the corner of Paterson and Governor. I got to share a meal with him and give him a copy of this photograph. He told me about his divorces and PTSD he experienced. He liked to fish to cope with it.
© Todd R. Darling
House on Fire. 402 East 37th street on fire. © Todd R. Darling
By his own admission, the years Darling spent away from Paterson were crucial to the development of the project, allowing him to approach the city with a unique lens informed by a blend of childhood nostalgia and foreign exposure. The term “idyll” refers to a place of peace and splendor, often idealized, and rarely sustainable. While Darling's capture of the fallout from an American dream denied is delivered with painful pathos, he never does his subjects the disservice of doing so with pity.
American Flag. A flag is displayed on a rooftop in the Little Lima neighborhood. It was formerly known as Little Dublin. It’s one of the first settlements in Paterson dating back to the early nineteenth century. © Todd R. Darling
