FK3, 2000

Shortly before the Fresh Kills landfill closed in March 2001, I photographed it by day. Located on Staten Island, it is at the edge of New York City. At night, I made photographs at the glittery center of urban consumption in Manhattan. Together, the pictures explore two poles of the city: the brand names visible among the detritus at the Fresh Kills margin testify to the allure of their origin at the center. While working at this fifty-three-year-old, twenty-two-hundred-acre landfill – the largest in the world – I was struck by the words of the poet A. R. Ammons: ‘Garbage has to be the poem of our time because / garbage is spiritual, believable enough / to get our attention, getting in the way … / … what else deflects us from the / errors of our illusionary ways.