Mission New Mission
Portrait of a Vanishing Neighborhood

Mission New Mission, composed of 35 photographs, was shot entirely in San Francisco’s Mission District, the heart of the city, and, with its sunny outlook, often hailed as the most dynamic and vibrant neighborhood. But beneath the lively colors, the popping bars and hot restaurants, the unrelenting and unforgiving force of gentrification is inexorably chipping away at the very social and cultural fabric that makes the Mission the Mission. 

The images in this show explore the emotional debris and social disorientation that remain when a place defined by the very idea of community is shaken up from the outside; they are a look into those moments when we desperately attempt to hold on to what may already be gone. But    above all, the photographs celebrate those rare remaining instances of bliss that we experience – face in the sun – when we forget for a moment, that the world is falling out from beneath our feet. 

As such, Mission New Mission is a requiem for a vanishing neighborhood, memorializing the beauty of a very specific place in a very specific time, as it takes its last hopeful breath – before being drowned for good.