A flock of blackbirds fill the pre-dawn sky in Greenwood, Mississippi on January 30, 2014.

Matt Eich

Sin and Salvation in Baptist Town

[ EPF 2014 SHORTLIST ]

For the last four years I have been drawn to Greenwood, Mississippi like a moth to a flame. Since 2010, I have explored a complex intersection of issues that span race, class, joblessness, opportunity, housing, education and segregation.

After years of making documentary images, I have grown frustrated with what photography is, and more interested in what it could be. I started making 6×7 images, a mixture of landscapes, documentary photographs, and most importantly, collaborative portraits. In this work I begin to blend these different representations of place with an emphasis on creating work that is less about my perspective as an outsider, and more about how the people I am photographing wish to be portrayed.

A flock of blackbirds fill the pre-dawn sky in Greenwood, Mississippi on January 30, 2014.

The smoke of cigarettes and cooking food filters together with a shaft of light in Adrian “Nikki” Wilson’s apartment she shares with her girlfriend “Dominique” and mother Ellen in Greenwood, Mississippi on November 30, 2011. Born and raised in Baptist Town, Nikki recently moved out of her childhood home and across the tracks, where there is more anonymity and less drama. She and her mother moved back into the Baptist Town neighborhood a few months later.

(L-R) Pat Hawkins, Roger “Winky” Williams, Eddie “Head” Taylor and Robert Pritchett load into a van on the fourth of July in the Baptist Town neighborhood of Greenwood, Mississippi before driving out to the lake in Grenada on Sunday, July 4, 2010.

A young man dives into the pool at the Greenwood Country Club in Greenwood, Mississippi on May 19, 2012.

A group of women celebrate a friend’s birthday party at Giardina’s restaurant at The Alluvian Hotel in Greenwood, Mississippi on May 26, 2011. The Alluvian is a cosmopolitan boutique hotel in the heart of the Mississippi Delta and is owned by the largest employer in town, Viking Range, which produces high-end custom ranges for homes and restaurants.

T.Mac Howard (far right) serves pizza to young men from south Greenwood in a building donated to Delta Street Ministries in Greenwood, Mississippi on September 29, 2011. Mr. Howard started a school for at-risk young men in 2012.

A coach whispers a play to a pee wee football player during a practice in Greenwood, Mississippi on August 2, 2012. Football is a big part of life and culture in the Mississippi Delta.

Dwight Harris plays pool in Odessa Nicks’ one-room bar in Baptist Town, Mississippi on Saturday, May 22, 2010.

August Malouf pushes a little girl on a swing at a house party in Greenwood, Mississippi on May 20, 2012.

A man trimming trees outside of the Best Western Hotel in Greenwood, Mississippi on May 20, 2012.

These collaborative portraits will become the basis of a public exhibition intended to create a safe space for dialogue about present race relations in Greenwood. I will partner with the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation to facilitate an open dialogue. The work will also live on a website where the community can upload their own text and images, thereby shaping the outcome of their story.

Additionally, I will collaborate with high school students from three different schools to teach children photography as a form of self-expression. These images made by students and other community-contributed content will become a part of the larger project, empowering the residents of Greenwood to portray themselves and their community from an insider view, to show a more balanced and nuanced perspective about life in this often stereotyped corner of America.

I seek to engage a historically divided community in a dialogue about present race-relations in the American South by minimizing my voice and presence while allowing the community to take the helm. We must acknowledge that the legacies of racism and segregation continue to impact people throughout our country economically and culturally, in persistent and often pernicious ways.

Richard Devon Taylor, 17, (a.k.a ÒPokeyÓ) shows a scar left by a gunshot wound in the Baptist Town neighborhood of Greenwood, Mississippi on May 19, 2012. Pokey was 16 when young men from another neighborhood who were ÒbeefingÓ with the boys from Baptist Town shot him as he walked out of a store around 11PM after getting a snack. The bullet passed through TaylorÕs stomach and came out his back. After being driven to the hospital by friends, he was put on a life-flight helicopter to Jackson where they could treat his extensive injuries.

Lakenson “Duke” Bridges, 13, draws R.I.P. tombstones on the porch of an abandoned house while sitting next to his brother, Quarion Bridges, 10, in the Baptist Town neighborhood of Greenwood, Mississippi on October 17, 2013.

The wake of Demetrius “Butta” Anderson, 18, in Greenwood, Mississippi on Thursday, November 4, 2010. Butta was shot and killed on October 27, 2010 by a man he had assaulted a year before. His older brother was shot and killed in 1996 and his cousin, Bianca Keys, was also 18 when she was murdered in 2009. Butta’s girlfriend is pregnant, due in December.

Reverend Calvin Collins and Charles McCoy help baptize a young boy during a service in Greenwood, Mississippi on Super Bowl Sunday, February 2, 2014.

An exhausted Kim Mims leans her head against the wall of her home in Greenwood, Mississippi on March 30, 2014 while her daughter, Ariebella, plays in a bouncy chair. Kim works the graveyard shift at a nearby gas station and during the days takes care of her two children while her husband, Marcus, renovates the house.

Marcus Mims holds his daughter Ariebella on the porch of their home in a trailer park behind the Waffle House in Greenwood, Mississippi on June 9, 2014.

Ellen “El” Wilson lies in bed smoking a cigarette a few months after suffering a stroke in the Baptist Town neighborhood of Greenwood, Mississippi on Thursday, November 4, 2010. Daily she must deal with a number of health issues including her sciatic nerve laying on her spine, which makes it difficult for her to walk. Her children Jabari and Nikki work to support their mother who applied for SSI in 2006 but has allegedly still not received anything.

Jabari Wilson rolls up a blunt in his home in the Baptist Town neighborhood of Greenwood, Mississippi on Super Bowl Sunday, February 2, 2014.

Boys dressed as cheerleaders perform a routine at the Powder Puff Football Game at Pillow Academy, the private school in Greenwood, Mississippi on March 31, 2014. For this role-swapping events the boys don cheerleader costumes, learn dances and the girls engage in a game of touch football while the parents sit back and enjoy the show.

Ellen Wilson (reflected) and her daughter Adrian “Nikki” Wilson sit in their living room in the Baptist Town neighborhood of Greenwood, Mississippi on October 17, 2013. Ellen suffers from a myriad of health issues and Nikki works at the nearby Heartland Catfish plant, gutting fish, in order to help support herself and her family.

(L-R) Jabari Wilson sits next to his cousin Korwin “Quan” and mother Ellen in the dining room of the home he shares with his mother, sister Nikki and her girlfriend Dominique in the Baptist Town neighborhood of Greenwood, Mississippi on Saturday, November 6, 2010. Jabari and his sister Nikki both work to support their mother who has a number of health problems and is unable to work. Quan (center) lost his mother in a car accident as a child and has been raised by his grandmother ever since.

A young man lit only by the dim glow of street lights stands on the corner of Young and Pelican late at night in the Baptist Town neighborhood of Greenwood, Mississippi on Thursday, November 4, 2010.

Bio

Matt Eich was born in Richmond, Virginia in 1986. He began working as a photographer while studying photojournalism at Ohio University for clients that include National Geographic, The New Yorker, GQ, Esquire, TIME, FADER, Harper’s, AARP, Apple, Tiffany & Company and others. He is currently pursuing his MFA in Photography from the Hartford Art School.

Matt has worked with support of grants from the Aaron Siskind Foundation, the Alexia Foundation, National Geographic Magazine and The Getty Images Grant for Editorial Photography. His work has been exhibited widely and his prints are in the permanent collections of The Portland Art Museum, The Museum of Fine Arts Houston and the New York Public Library.

These days Eich lives in Norfolk, Virginia with his family while accepting commissions and creating photographic essays about the American condition.

Related links

Matt Eich