Permanent Drift: Walking in Olde Kensington (2012-16) - Hardcover

by John Waller (Photographer), Pete Duval (Contribution by)

Olde Kensington, a small neighborhood just north of Center City Philadelphia, was predominantly a post-industrial area when I moved in, yet ominous signs of imminent change seemed to indicate that the fate of the place rested in other hands. Muddling my way through the unfamiliar streets on foot, the city seemed to push and pull me in this direction or that one, like it was leading me somewhere. Sometimes I resisted, others I followed, but I never caught a glimpse of my secret guide, who insisted on remaining shrouded in the empty spaces of the city. As a record of these ambulations, this work limns the tension between the extant and the imminent, the intervalic experience of living in a city in flux, and a complicated relationship to place.