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Leon Alesi: The Proximity Series
Documenting the profound changes to an urban neighborhood in Austin
By
Jeanne Claire van Ryzin for Sightlines Magazinehttps://sightlinesmag.org/leon-alesi-the-proximity-series
November 2, 2020
Leon Alesi began documenting his central Austin neighborhood in 2014. He has lived in the Bouldin Creek community for more than 25 years — a time span that has seen the downtown-adjacent area morph from a modest neighborhood to one invaded by enormous modern-esque houses squeezed onto the small lots.The Bouldin Creek Neighborhood Association claims 2700 households in the area bounded by Lady Bird Lake to the north, Oltorf Street to the south, South Congress Avenue to the east, and South Lamar Boulevard to the west. Until Colorado River flooding was controlled post-WWII, property was cheap on its south side. And much of the Bouldin Creek neighborhood’s initial development occurred in the 1920s and 1930s, when small bungalows were built among the Live Oak trees.Called “The Proximity Series,” Alesi’s images speak to architecture and scale. But they also speak to economic inequities, gentrification and a disappearing sense of place. Built to the absolute limits allowed on a plot of land, the new houses metastasize. Privacy fences and walls stand in aggressive postures. The public realm of the street and the sidewalk is shut out, ignored. So is the neighborhood.
“The first 15 years I lived here didn’t hold much transformation, but for the past ten years the change is happening exponentially,” Alesi says. “I started noticing the ridiculous juxtaposition of newly built architecture, standing next to the classic bungalows.When he started, Alesi had been working on a years-long portrait project, capturing people in the intimate settings of their homes. Photographing neighborhood houses provided a creative departure.And in completely eliminating the human element from his images, Alesi realized something else: a certain element of subjectivity disappeared.“The absence of people speaks to the changing nature of how we live, with less street-level interaction with our neighbors,” Alesi says. “I really don’t know who I live near anymore. ”When they moved to Bouldin Creek, Alesi and his wife, artist Stella Alesi, repaired and remodeled an old bungalow on West Milton Street, bringing it back from the neglected rental property it had been. They added nothing to the structure’s footprint. On occasion they stage their home as Blackbox, a project space gallery.