Jannis Schulze’s photographs take us from a room, a hallway or a church, to the sidewalks where children play while men and women chat or have drinks. The walls, the close-ups—typically of objects—and the half-light of the interiors, make us feel the near-physical pleasure of going outside, of taking in the fresh air around the houses. The windows with iron bars on their facades remind us, however, that the seemingly lively streets, come evening, can transform into threatening places that we might want to protect ourselves from.
In the living spaces, movements are slow, time is thick. A girl is seated on the lap of her father—whose only feature we distinguish with any clarity, is a hand that appears from out of the darkness and rests, immobile, like a tattooed statue. Upon stepping onto the pavement, bodies and gestures come to life. Standing before a graffiti-covered wall, a boy uses his fingers to etch new codes of urban culture into the air.
Two ways of being and of moving within space: oscillating between both, Jannis Schulze’s San Carlos shows us two sides of the day-to-day in a working class neighborhood nestled close to Santo Domingo’s historical center.
