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Matt Black
American, b. 1970 (Associate)
Featured Essays
Elderly and Impoverished in Maine
Mar 27, 2019
With a median age of 45, Maine is the “oldest” state in the US. If trends continue, Maine’s seniors will outnumber younger demographic groups by 2020 and by 2030 the state may have more residents aged 65 and older than under 18. Of specific concern is the fact that many of the state’s oldest residents live below the poverty line. A lack of government assistance makes life difficult, if not dangerous... More...
Featured Essays
Hurricane Maria Aftermath in Puerto Rico
Mar 27, 2018
On September 20th, two weeks after Hurricane Irma, Hurricane Maria slowly moved across Puerto Rico resulting in enormous damage to the island's aging infrastructure. Though still uncertain, it's thought that as many as 500 people died. The 155mph winds destroyed the powder grid, the deluge of rain overwhelmed drainage systems, and landslides decimated homes and roadways. Though declared a Federal Disaster... More...
Featured Essays
Geography of Poverty: States of the Union
Feb 13, 2018
Examining life in the forgotten corners of America during the first months of the Trump presidency, this latest installment from photographer Matt Black’s project The Geography of Poverty finds region after region of the US marked by the competing conditions of poverty, violence, and prejudice as well as hope, honor, and pragmatism.

From December 2016 to September 2017, Black travelled over 40,000... More...
Featured Essays
Memento Park: Relics of History’s Dark Chapters
Dec 18, 2017
(How should society deal with controversial monuments that bear testimony to a difficult past? Matt Black provides a photographic meditation on relics of Communism.)

The late Czeslaw Milosz, Nobel-prize-winning Polish poet, prose writer, translator, and diplomat, engaged with ideas surrounding Central and Eastern Europe’s history in living memory. In his 1980 Nobel lecture, Milosz considered how “a... More...
Featured Essays
The Geography of Poverty: Heartland
Nov 30, 2016
The third of photographer Matt Black’s cross-country trips, for his ongoing project the Geography of Poverty, took him on a journey of 23,000 miles across 22 states. From farm towns in Central California and ranching communities Oregon, across Native American reservations on the Great Plains, to the political convention cities of Cleveland, Ohio, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the project took the... More...