The Story About This Place is a photographic series that depicts outdoor areas and plazas in and around Miami, Florida, the place I have called home all my life. Whether in the harsh, bright, contrasted light of the day or in the neon-charged noir of our nights, The Story has led me to focus on these strange moments of serenity and intimacy found in the architectural emptiness within the busy Miami suburbs.
Overall, this series questions aesthetic choices made in the often haphazard build-up of suburban sprawl by way of real estate ventures, natural flora coincidences and metaphors for sea level rise. In an effort to examine these choices, I document scenes through photography and create a satirical reverence generated by imagery of concrete monoliths, car culture, benign signage, and other invasive agencies. It is here at “home” That I have reluctantly discovered an instability that operates beautifully and is at the same time horrifying.
New constructions are loaded with new symbols that are best described as modern-day hieroglyphics. I hope to create a dialog that connects this language through The Story. Our current environment, in many ways, is not connected enough to our natural past. Through my photographic discovery I’m often reconciled with the habitat that once was.

Ivan Santiago 2016