Noritaka Minami
California City, California/加利福尼雅城,加州此計畫調查了加州一城市計畫,50年代莫哈韋沙漠的社區總體營造的計畫。一個由社會學家以及房地產開發商內森・曼德森發起的計畫。該計畫區被設定為加州的重要大都市,因應第二次世界大戰後加州的人口和經濟增長,曼德森及他的同事精心設計了187平方英里大的區域,直至目前為止該面積被列為第三大城市。
早期加州多次強調,在加利福尼雅城有豐沛的水源,作為吸引對潛在地主的誘因。這片土地被炒作為整個莫哈韋沙漠中最大的水井集中地,能夠產生每天「超過20,000,000加侖」的水,繪畫出一個「水源豐沛」的世外桃源。如今,加利福尼雅城成為一個虛幻,一場夢境表述著當初開發者沒辦法達到的目標,和已經失效的公眾宣傳,田園般的意象虛無的存在著。
片土地含有豐沛的地下水源的說法,後來被人們發現,基本上沒有任何根據。此計畫的攝影作品集中在加利福尼亞成的規劃區域,廣大的城區無人居住,儘管規劃的街道在土地上刻上一痕痕的紀錄。空拍照記錄了開發商提出在沙摸中的加利福尼雅城區域。這些照片揭露了該地域似乎暫停了時光:顯示將有一個城市,但如果未來會到來,這也都是假設罷了。我的攝影計畫目的是探索50年代曼德森提出的沙漠景願景的圖像與現實中存在的加利福尼雅城之間的差距。
My project examines California City, a master-planned community in the Mojave Desert conceived by sociologist turned real estate developer Nathan Mendelsohn in the 1950s. The city was envisioned as the next major metropolis in California in response to the population and economic growths the state experienced after World War II. Mendelsohn and his associates carefully designed the layout of 187 square miles that is to this day listed as the third largest “city” in terms of land size. The early promotional materials for California City employed water as a recurring motif to emphasize the city’s appeal to potential homeowners. The land was touted as having the largest concentration of water wells in the entire Mojave Desert, capable of eventually producing “more than 20,000,000 gallons per day” to create a “water-rich” wonderland. Today, California City exists as a place that has yet to meet the original ambition of its developer and the idyllic image that was promoted to the public. Moreover, the claim that the land was rich with underground sources of water was found to be largely unsubstantiated. My photographs focus on a vast section of California City that is mostly uninhabited, despite having a complex network of streets that stretch across the landscape. The aerial photographs document the scale of the vision Mendelsohn proposed in the desert. These photographs show the site seemingly suspended in time: clearly there to host a city in the future but also without any signs if that future will ever arrive. The aim of my project is to explore the gap between the image that was projected onto the desert landscape by Mendelsohn in the 1950s and the image of California City that exists today in reality.
About the photographer:
Noritaka Minami is a photographer based in Chicago. He received his BA in Art Practice from the University of California, Berkeley and his MFA in Studio Art from the University of California, Irvine. Minami is currently an Assistant Professor of Photography at Loyola University Chicago. He has also taught courses at Harvard University, Wellesley College, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, UC Berkeley, and UC Irvine. He is a recipient of grants from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, the Graham Foundation, the Santo Foundation, and Center for Cultural Innovation. In 2015, he published a monograph titled “1972 — Nakagin Capsule Tower” (Kehrer Verlag), which received the 2015 Architectural Book Award from the Deutsches Architekturmuseum in Frankfurt, Germany. Solo exhibitions of his works have been held at Kana Kawanishi Gallery, SFO Museum, USC Roski School of Art and Design, UCLA Department of Architecture and Urban Design, Griffin Museum of Photography, and UC Merced Art Gallery. His works have also been exhibited at Aperture (New York), Somerset House (London), Photo Basel (Basel), and Kearney Street Workshop (San Francisco). Minami’s works are held in the collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, UCLA Architecture and Urban Design, and Museum of Contemporary Photography Chicago.
Website: noritakaminami.com