A tale of two cities in Venice Beach, where affluence and adversity collide
A resident of Venice, Los Angeles, for the past 15 years, US photographer Karen Ballard has documented the transformation of the Californian coastal town from holiday resort to artistic hub and, increasingly, a site of homelessness. She tells RFI about the resulting images, recently shown in France.
Award-winning photojournalist and film stills photographer Ballard moved to Venice, a beachside neighbourhood of LA, in 2009.
Millions of people visit the resort town every year, making it southern California’s second most popular tourist attraction after Disneyland. Yet the famed boardwalk also hosts a growing homeless population.
Featured at this year's Visa pour l'Image photojournalism festival in Perpignan, southern France, Ballard's series "Venice, California" captures what the curators call "a place where beauty, surf, wealth, and the harsh realities of 21st-century America exist side by side".
RFI: What was the idea behind your photo series on Venice?
Karen Ballard: Venice is kind of a microcosm of Los Angeles in the sense that Los Angeles is still struggling with a big homeless population. And yet it's also the land of Hollywood, and it's the land of Beverly Hills, and it's the land of Rodeo Drive.
And so what you see now in Venice is a bit of that influx. There's a wealthy side to Venice now, but there's also this homeless side. And that's kind of the dichotomy of my project.
RFI: When did you start this project?
KB: I started it right when I moved there at the end of 2009.
Read more on RFI English
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