Walking Los Angeles with Janet Sternburg
When everything shut down during the height of the pandemic it caused us to pivot from our usual activities and stay close to home. We all started to learn new skills and take up new hobbies. I, for one, tackled the various arts and crafts kits I’d accumulated over the years (learning I really don’t like to craft) and started walking my neighborhood. Many other people started walking more including writer and photographer Janet Sternburg who used the lockdown to walk around Los Angeles and take photographs of what she found in the empty city. Those photographs have been compiled into her latest monograph, I’ve Been Walking, and I was lucky enough to be sent a copy.
Courtesy of the artist
Janet Sternburg made an name for herself through her film-making and writing but in recent years she has becoming most noted for her photography. When in her fifties, she began taking photographs with disposable cameras and soon developed a following. In the years since her works have been exhibited across the globe from New York to Berlin to Seoul and published in various monographs including her most recent, I’ve Been Walking.
Courtesy of the artist
I’ve Been Walking is a direct result of Sternburg’s experience during the early days of the pandemic. When everything shut down last spring she decided to walk around her Little Tokyo neighborhood and photograph the empty city and, as she states, “…I started to see a poetry that I hadn’t always seen in more populated times.”
Courtesy of the artist
In I’ve Been Walking we are able to visualize that poetry through her photographic works. Purposely avoiding digital or optical manipulation, Sternburg proves that every day objects are far from mundane. Even the simplest form, like water in a gutter, can be filled with movement, life and beauty when we take the opportunity to really look at it.
Courtesy of the artist
When the city emptied of people it provided a chance to view it through a different lens and Janet Sternburg took full advantage of the opportunity. I’ve Been Walking, is a summation of what she discovered in her period of wandering. Finding poetry in the every day, it shows the wonders that surround us if we just bother to look for them.