Black Friday
Forcing myself out on Black Friday, I photographed the expected crowds, traffic jams, and consumer chaos. Yet I found myself most drawn to quieter moments and to the attempts stores made to impose order on the pandemonium. People sleeping or lying on cold concrete sidewalks while waiting for stores to open struck me as unexpectedly vulnerable figures in public space. At Walmart, I moved through swarms of shoppers to the back of the store, where I discovered an empty layaway room filled with unopened boxes beneath clusters of inflated price balloons. At Toys “R” Us, a disheveled doll lay in an abandoned cart, arms raised in apparent distress on a bed of sale circulars. At Target, I became interested in employees’ efforts to maintain a sense of order and the relative calm they exhibited amid the intensity of the event. Together, these moments shifted my attention away from spectacle and toward the quieter tensions, absurdities, and vulnerabilities embedded within the ritual of mass consumption.