Mary Beth Meehan’s photos dissolve distances between people - CSMonitor.com
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Silicon Valley exerts a magnetism like a tractor beam on people from around the world. They come to the San Francisco Bay Area seeking riches, or at least the trickle down from the booming high-tech economy led by Apple, Alphabet (owner of Google), and Facebook.
The reality, as photographer Mary Beth Meehan depicts in the book “Seeing Silicon Valley: Life Inside a Fraying America,” is strikingly different. Yes, tech companies have created thousands of jobs, she says in an interview, “but the dominant narrative about a ‘utopia’ obscures how life is actually lived, and what it means to be a human being there.” The gap between the ultra-wealthy and ordinary workers – who cannot afford housing and basic necessities even with decent-paying jobs – is widening.
Silicon Valley is a microcosm of the broader inequality that divides the nation, according to Meehan. The effects are felt not just economically but socially. “People are living right next to each other and they don’t interact,” she says. To counter this sense of separation, the photographer created portraits that encourage readers to go beyond stereotypes to see the people who make up this amorphous place known as Silicon Valley. The result is a book of images that speaks to the human toll exacted by the relentless economy.
When she makes portraits, Meehan collaborates with individuals to decide where and how they will be photographed, and what they’ll be wearing. Her skill is seen in the deliberateness with which she frames and edits the picture.
By highlighting the humanity of each person, Meehan hopes to bring out the viewer’s humanity. This is especially important in a place like Silicon Valley, she says, where the wealthy may not really see the people who clean, cook, and care for them and their families. It’s a place where immigrants arrive seeking the American dream, only to end up struggling to find a foothold.
“Each project is pushing against a big system,” she says. “In Silicon Valley, it’s the myth that the economy there is floating all boats.” Why, she argues, can’t some of that enormous wealth go into creating healthy lives for the people there? “That’s the question we’re really asking, and what does that say about the American economy?”