I’m interested in the human relationships formed around food and also in the social impact of making healthy food options more accessible in communities where they are scarce. From the beginning of the project, I knew I wanted to focus on the people—the vendors and customers. Through a series of “day in the life” type photo-stories, I set out to document the everyday lives of those impacted by the Green Carts, showing how communities interacted on the streets around the cart and how families interacted in their homes over meals they cooked with the produce.
I started with vendor Patricia Jiménez and her family in September 2009 at 138th Street and Brook Avenue. I immediately responded to her energy. She is a tiny Mexican woman with a big family who holds her own on a block that is the gateway to a section of the south Bronx dubbed “Death Valley” in the not-so-distant past for its startlingnumber of murders and drug- related crimes. When I started, Patricia owned one Green Cart license, and by the end of one year, she had added a second with her husband Charlie. She has become a daily point of reference in the community and an example of courage, determination, and strength.
Through her, I met and photographed many of her customers, who had me as a guest in their homes for lunch or dinner, and I also met Marcos Bravo, a vendor who used to own another Green Cart on the opposite side of the street. From the vantage point of Patricia’s Green Cart, I witnessed life unfold on the block. Though my photographic work on the block is done, the stories, like the frame of the photograph, only tell a part; their lives and communities continue with many other tales unfolding.
Gabriele Stabile was born in Palermo, Italy, and grew up in Rome, where he graduated from Sapienza Università di Roma. He worked as a radio show writer, director, and editor in Italy prior to moving to London in 2006 to study photography, earning an MA degree in photographic journalism at Westminster University. In 2007, Stabile attended the documentary photography program at the International Center for Photography in New York and became a contributor to the New York Times, Fader, and Gourmet, as well as Italian publications such as Repubblica, D, and Il Venerdì. Over the past year, he has worked on a personal project concerning the arrivals of refugees in America, entitled The Refugee Motel.
http://www.gabrielestabile.com/
