Kodak Tri-X 320
I set out to document encounters with the Green Carts’ owners, workers, and customers. I was looking for how the presence of a mobile food cart can generate human connectivity on the street and also at the relationship between people and fruits and vegetables. After studying the list of Green Cart locations, I began mapping out the neighborhoods. I learned right away that most Green Cart vendors know exactly where other Green Cart vendors are located and could point me in the right direction. I spent three to four hours at each Green Cart before I started shooting in order to learn the workers’ schedules, their regular customers, and the point in the day when the most fruit was sold.
Over time, I learned that the workers at a Green Cart are not alwaysthe owners, that they encounterfierce competition for business with other nearby vendors, and that there are constant worries about health department code violations and fears of harassment from the New York City Police.
It’s funny how vendors are visible outside on the street, working sunrise to sunset and sometimes twenty-four hours a day, but somehow they remain invisible.
LaToya Ruby Frazier was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She earned her BFA in photography and graphic design in 2004 at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, and her MFA in art photography from the School of Visual and Performing Arts at Syracuse University in 2007. Influenced by documentary photography and direct cinema, Frazier uses photography and video to produce work within the emotional realm of her intergenerational family experience, exploring the lines between private and public space, reality and memory. Museums and galleries where her work has been shown include the New Museum, Bronx Museum of the Arts, and Higher Pictures, all in New York City. She has previously worked as a photo editor for Newsweek, and is currently the Associate Curator for the Mason Gross Galleries in the Department of Visual Arts at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, where she also teaches digital photography.
