Elena Lyakir

In recent years my Brooklyn neighborhood has changed dramatically due to rapid overdevelopment. The continuous disappearance of punctuated natural environments had been very noticeable.
In 2015 I began taking photographs of random pockets of nature as a form of record. After a few days or weeks I would return to several locations I had already photographed to observe the transformations. As I witnessed the ominous green construction fences changing the history of city landscape by rapidly enveloping places where, not long ago, thriving flora served as habitat for birds and other city “wildlife”, I was compelled to explore this subject in my work. I made in-camera double exposures of the disappearing nature, depicting birds, trees, and intimate landscapes photographed in and around inner cities to create immersive large-scale panoramic images. The subtly abstract visual quality of the double exposure technique echoes nature in constant flux – a result of the human influence on the environment.
The project had expanded to include other cities in the U.S. and around the globe. City Parks Romance illuminates random sights of vegetation as well as remaining city parks as an expansive and dreamy atmosphere of romance and nostalgia – sentiments we often feel for nature as a result of living in urban environments.