Gesche Wuerfel

 

In 2010, my husband and I were apartment-hunting in Uptown Manhattan. At first, I was more interested in the apartments until my husband, a NYC native, insisted on seeing the basements to make sure they were clean. What I encountered in these basements of NYC was truly amazing, and I decided that ‘Basement Sanctuaries’ would be my next project. Over the course of two years I photographed how superintendents decorate the basements of apartment buildings in Inwood and Washington Heights by illuminating the process of migrant adaptation to the metropolis from an intimate perspective. Before every photo shoot I was excited about what super I would meet, what decoration I would encounter, how the super would curate the space and what references I may find to his culture and/or dreamscape (there are only very few female supers working/living in NYC). This project made me feel very connected to the neighborhood and it was quite sad when the project came to an end.