Justin Maxon: When the Spirit Moves

3 minute read

Photographer Justin Maxon writes for Lightbox on the tragedy of Chester and his plans to use his work there to benefit the community.

In my three years documenting Chester, I learned it is a place where a domino effect of socio-economic issues, compounded by a long history of government corruption, have revealed the community to be a microcosm of the wounds of racism that still exist this country. Chester is a community facing a wide spectrum of issues. The most grime statistic is the upwards of 300 unsolved murder cases since the mid-nineties.

In the progression of my work there, I began to grow frustrated that my work didn’t have the dimension I felt was necessary to unfold the overlapping issues in this community. In an attempt to capture this complexity, I decided to experiment with multiple exposures. As photographers, we capture moments, but they are often one-dimensional versions of reality. The past, present, and future are all intertwined together creating this existing moment, and a single image doesn’t do this justice. The dichotomy of the human experience cannot be encapsulated inside the four walls of a frame. With so many intersecting causes and consequences, actions link together like a chain, each one adding weight to the whole. Time is sandwiched together, stacked on top brick by brick, moment by moment. The heavier the moments become, the greater the strain on this linkage of time. People living in Chester know this strain, for they endure a tremendous amount of weight to survive. I wanted my photographs to reflect that burden to carry their own weight and better represent the complications of living here.

I’ve witnessed a tremendous amount of tragedy in Chester and have often felt like a helpless bystander with a camera, never seeing any examples of how my work was tangibly benefiting the community.

I feel strongly that many photographers today, myself included, have not fully utilized the work we are making to benefit those we document. Work often just ends up on a personal website or at best, published in a magazine or newspaper, where the photographer has no control over the dialog or who their images reach. We throw our work out into the abyss of imagery, idealist in our hope that something will happen from it. Most often nothing comes to pass; people turn the page and move on.

With Chester facing so many unsolved murders, there is a grave need for a campaign against violence: a unified movement of people who want to create real change in Chester. There is already a tremendous amount being done by various advocacy and faith-based organizations. I want to work with these groups to help combat violence.

Justin Maxon’s Chester project is currently seeking funding.

Family members carry the casket of Kathy Ann Stewart, after a funeral service in her name. Stewart was murdered by a stray bullet while laying in bed talking to her fiance on the phone.Justin Maxon
Residents pray in front of the home of a women who was shot by a stray bullet in the William Penn housing project. The group walked around the housing project for seven days in protest of the violence.Justin Maxon
Children from the Bacon household play Christmas morning after opening presents, while a close family friend, left, who made the floor in the house his home, naps on the couch in the living room.Justin Maxon
Children sleep at a family friend's house after watching TV. The parents of the kids threw a party in their neighborhood and didn't want their children around, so they sent them to a friend for the evening.Justin Maxon
Latasha Bacon, 21, sits with her leg out smoking a cigarette. Bacon is currently under house arrest after spending over a month in jail for a domestic depute she had with the father of her children.Justin Maxon
A girl stands in the doorway of her uncle's house waiting for her mother to return from the corner store, while her cousin lies on the ground using a computer.Justin Maxon
Doretha Washington, left, grieves at the casket of her younger sister, Kathy Ann Stewart, who was murdered by a stray bullet. After the murder, a group prays in front of the home where Stewart was murdered.Justin Maxon

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