PALMETTO STREET DAYS

(2011-2017) 

Mallika Vora

The Brooklyn constructed by my memory exists as a closed loop of a five-block radius of Palmetto Street and Knickerbocker Avenue. New Years Eve at 381 with Anita and Hilario, shoveling snow at 372 with Linnette, Robert sending a pot of soup down with Louis when I had the flu. Watching Rasheem from Linden Street grow from a boy to a man. Jaelyn waving to me from her window perch, and Flaco's daily "how you doin" on my walk to work. Hernán and Mercedes in 364 feeding me rice, swapping facts about Ecuador and India.

Summer stoop sessions at 300 with Shameeka and Willie and Hellen and Donovan and Ruga and GG and the kids. Getting the cops called on us for playing music too loud. 300 P-Block fam calling my name from halfway down the block, greeting me after work with a cup of Henny. Endless birthdays, baby showers, barbecues, block parties.

This project is a six-year love poem to the neighborhood that adopted me, nurtured me and showed me love every single day.  I leave knowing I have family here waiting for me to return.

Mallika Vora (@mallikaphoto) is a documentary photographer complicating human narratives though an inductive and collaborative approach to storytelling. She believes in a visual journalistic practice that challenges the audience to question their own notions and value judgements of different intersections of society. She is relocating to Mexico City after nearly a decade in Brooklyn, New York.