Welcome to Flint — Juan Madrid & Brett Carlsen

A cracked, empty lot at dusk with houses and power lines beyond

Welcome to Flint

Photographs by Juan Madrid and Brett Carlsen — fifteen frames from a long-term documentary project. The selected images were featured in a profile about the project in Shadowbanned Magazine Issue 05

001 The project

Welcome to Flint is a long-term documentary photography project by Juan Madrid and Brett Carlsen that examines the realities of life in Flint, Michigan, with depth and nuance. The photographs featured here are selected from the larger series, which rejects simplistic narratives of decline in favor of a more complex portrait of the city.

A man in a striped knit cap holds a puppy up in front of him at the roadside

A woman sits on a sofa beneath a framed painting of flying geese

A white pit bull held in someone's lap in evening light

A couple stands together in a parking lot at dusk, arms around each other

002 Everyday life

A man rests his hand on the head of a small boy in a backyard

Two teenagers with a basketball lean against a chain-link fence

A taped-up heavy bag hangs from a bare tree across from boarded houses

This particular stretch of the country has had its image shaped by a post-industrial society that is bombarded with news of violence and danger. Our country has allowed this and other mythologies to placate reality, which in turn, has neutered any responsibility to each other.

Close portrait of a man with facial tattoos, eyes closed

Pale tile floor scattered with debris and a rust-colored stain

003 A microcosm

The series examines the city as a microcosm of contemporary America, where issues such as poverty, violence, racism, and economic inequality intersect in everyday life. Through intimate and observational imagery, the photographs reveal how the challenges facing Flint reflect broader social and political conditions across the United States, offering a portrait of a community that is both uniquely local and profoundly representative of the nation as a whole.

A green coupe raised on oversized off-road tires parked on a lawn

A person raises an arm in tall grass across from a blue storefront, summer evening

Flint,
Michigan ( ongoing )

A pegboard wall marked with a chalk figure and handwritten words including Either Way and Life

It is that sense of responsibility of being human to one another that will help us begin to emerge from the dark history of our country. Otherwise, we may sink even further into a reality that exploits mythology at our expense.Excerpt from Welcome to Flint