Photos I took of Brooklyn-based musician Morgan O’Kane are up on Narratively. Click through for photos and a beautiful article by Patrick Flanary.
click through to check out the final body of work from my snug harbor residency.
I love Staten Island- its no secret. I started a second blog just to post images from my recent artist residency at Snug Harbor and images of Staten Island folks dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Please click HERE to be directed to the new blog. Tara Israel’s Staten Island. It’s the newest addition to the Tisraeli Republic.
I wrote a short piece for Narratively in response to “Reinventing the Oldest Profession” talking about a few life lessons I have learned documenting the sex industry over the last few years. Please CLICK THROUGH to read my full essay. The photos are also mine, taken at SlutWalk NYC 2011.
Words by Noah Rosenberg. Photos by Tara Israel. Click through for article.
Opening reception Saturday October 6th from 2-4pm! My artist residency at Snug Harbor has come to an end, but you can see the work at the show that will be up through November 11th. Working from a list of addresses provided to me by my grandparents I traced the footsteps of 4 generations of my family that lived on Staten Island until 1965. Staten Island has changed greatly since their departure (“That damn bridge ruined everything!” -says everyone). Rather than get hung up on the past I chose to shoot whatever and whomever currently occupies the spaces where my family lived, worked and lived some more. Come and see my little experiment with history.
Click through for a piece I did for Narratively on art handlers. Thank you to Judy Batalion for her assistance and brilliance. Without her you would all just be listening to about 5 hours of audio as I yarned away with the 5 art handlers that I also photographed.
Former site of the Jersey Street Shul. Jersey Street was at one point the home to many Jewish immigrants and business owners, including my great-great grandparents.
South Beach. Staten Island.
Formerly Mauro’s Market, located across from the elementary school attended by my grandmother, father and his two sisters. My father would save up all week to buy a 25 cent bologna sandwich. My aunt Robin would buy Drake’s cakes.
My father gave this intersection as the rough location of the childhood home of my great-grandmother, Julia Cohen. She was born on Staten Island. A highway now cuts through the area where she lived.
United Hebrew Cemetery. Staten Island.
I am back! It has been a bit since my last post because I’ve been preparing for an artist residency that I just started. I am currently shacked up (actually cottaged up) at Snug Harbor on Staten Island for two months working on a project similar to (a)Bonac. Based on a long list of addresses and memories I am tracing my family history on Staten Island, spanning from my great-great grandparents to the early 1960s when my father’s family moved off the Island. My knowledge of SI is based not in reality but what I call “family facts”- collective memories shared over dinners that have surely bent with time and have never been fact checked. Up until I moved here, I imagined that Staten Island was still filled with small businesses owned by Jewish immigrants and patches of farmland frozen in time around the 1930s. Obviously things have changed. For the next two months I will be creeping around the North Shore with a camera and notebook in hand, walking through the memories of my ancestors. Homes have been renovated. Businesses have been replaced. Communities have changed. My GPS has led me to everything from vacant lots to Chinese restaurants. Along the way I am photographing landscapes and knocking on doors to meet the current occupants. Stay tuned…
