There is a deliberate juxtaposition between life and ruin in the first half of Allen’s A Beautiful Ghetto. The series of photographs embrace the word “ghetto,” yet challenges the definition to stretch beyond the borders forced upon it. With this play of definitions, Allen evokes a dual meaning of both life in death and death in life. He doesn’t hide from the abandoned and boarded up buildings that litter the city, yet these seemingly lifeless spaces are often shown to be more than what appears on the surface. A tree grows inside (12), people walk past (9), life goes on all around it. In one image there is a close up of a needle, slightly off-kilter and nearly blending in with the white sidewalk, yet still remaining separated from the environment from which it has been placed (15). It is bounded by its frame, occupying just a mere few inches of the world. It is this hyper-fixation on such a small space, especially after a series of wide shots, that forces us to question what we would see if we picked our heads up -- how can we look beyond the frame that was handed to us?
A picture has the unique ability to capture and isolate a moment in time. Yet, with the choice to use a black and white color scheme, some photographs could easily be placed outside of its time: 2015 Baltimore. Without the escape of color, there is a slight disorientation of time. The viewer is largely cut off from any anchor, which reinforces the cyclical nature of uprisings and race in America. In the introduction of the book, there are many references to the past, particularly the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s, and it seems that not much has changed in the following decades. Still, Allen increasingly adds pictures of children, both of those just living in Baltimore and those already amongst the protesters. With this emphasis on the future generation, Allen suggests hope that the work of today has meaning and the future will be better than what it left behind.
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