Stalled Developments Documented

This piece from Domus interviews Kariko and shows some of his work.

"Domus: Due to the host of recent projects out there on foreclosed homes, that contemporary aesthetic is starting to seem cliché. These images of incomplete developments have something in common, but there is also an uncanny sense of suspended animation. How did you contend with the aesthetics of this project?

Daniel Kariko: I'm mostly interested in the content of the scene I'm depicting. The aesthetic is often a tool to draw in the viewer, so I can tell them my story. Any particular aesthetic, to me, exists as a top layer of the image, and, when peeled off, reveals a visual metaphor I intend to portray.

The sense of suspended animation is real-it is there when you drive through these subdivisions. In Lehigh Acres, one of the oldest communities, there might be entire blocks with several houses, with only one or two inhabited ones. For my aerial images, I typically chose to include the ones with no evidence of construction equipment, which was not that hard to do-99% of the images I made at that time were empty of any kind of discernable building activity."