April 14-20, 2005
artpicks
In Flux
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A young Peruvian boy sits on the steps in front of his family's house, clutching a Batman action figure. A woman from Sierra Leone brushes her daughter's hair before church. A Sikh man in a turban steps to the lane in a bowling alley, ball in hand. These are some of the scores of faces captured by local photographer Harvey Finkle — folks clinging to traditions of their native culture while finding ways to adapt to their new Western home. "Philadelphia Mosaic: New Immigrants in America," an exhibit opening this week at Drexel's Hagerty Library (originally shown at the Free Library in 2003), represents years of work on Finkle's part studying 10 families who came from across the globe over the past 20 years to settle in Philadelphia. Like the immigrants of the 1880s, these families arrive to escape hardships of economics and political unrest, and the photographer calls the trend "a prototype of the process taking place in most cities in America." In South Philadelphia, Amin Bitar and his family are shown in and around the Lebanese eatery bearing their name, while ornate dresses and a clustering crowd mark a Cambodian wedding. Other families come from Laos, Russia, Guatemala, Indonesia and Jamaica, and Finkle effectively and intimately shows that the latest surge in immigration isn't simply European, as it was 100 years ago. Now, it's coming from all corners of the world.
"Philadelphia Mosaic: New Immigrants in America," opening lecture Thu., April 14, 4 p.m., exhibit through May 31, Hagerty Library, Drexel University, 33rd and Market sts., 215-895-1500.
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