Gail Albert Halaban: Hug, Palacio de Los Patos Out My Window, 2016

In her decade-long photography project Out My Window, Gail Albert Halaban has photographed what neighbors see through their windows in cities around the world. The photographs are made from one residence looking into the window of another with the consent of both parties. Both sides of the view meet through the making of the photograph, so that the process of making the work connects neighbor to neighbor, creating community against the loneliness of the city.

Halaban states: “though initially, my work seems voyeuristic, above all this project is about my desire to connect with my subjects and their desire to connect with their neighbors.

The windows are both a boundary and a gateway, connecting viewer and viewed. Significantly, I work not from the street or the air but from the window across the way: when you look at my pictures, you stand in the neighbor’s shoes. Connecting neighbors, strengthening community lies at the heart of all of my work. Deeply seated in the artistic layers, beneath the play of light and form, lies human connectivity.

I begin by meeting with my subjects and then helping them meet their neighbors. Meeting a neighbor is not without risks. The city demands that we trade off privacy for a community that, once joined, surrounds us always. I find reason for hope in people’s desire to take that risk, to connect with one another and interact explicitly.”

The photograph here is from Palacio de Los Patos in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Built in the 1920s, it was modeled after a French apartment building. Halaban decided to explore Buenos Aires after her Paris Views project (Aperture, 2014) since it is known as the Paris of South America. This photograph is the view out her own window where she stayed in Buenos Aires.

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