KENNY KARPOV DOCUMENTS DETROIT DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC
I’m Karpov a Russian photographer currently living in Detroit. I had planned on being in the field for a nonprofit starting April 1st. Since COVID-19 hit, I cannot travel abroad so I did the next best thing, I looked up a few nonprofits in the area I could work with as a volunteer. I started with Forgotten Harvest in late March attending various outdoor food banks across Detroit and the metro areas. I wanted to volunteer with them because food banks all across this state are in dire need of help delivering aid to individuals and families. I started documenting the faces of people while they sit in their cars and then slowly introducing myself and taking stories of how the pandemic has impacted them and their neighborhoods.
What I think COVID-19 has really done has heightened the awareness of what food insecurity is, and what it’s like to not have access to an adequate supply of food. The good news is Forgotten Harvest has been there since the virus started. The organization has made services easier to access — and have implemented social distancing into the drive up for food. Essentially, those picking up food boxes at mobile pantries don’t have to leave their cars. You meet with a person who stays six feet away from your car, you answer three or four questions, who are you picking up food for and how many people are in the household, then the volunteers and staff put the groceries into their cars — and then they drive off.
A lot of people who are driving up for food are new and this is a whole new experience for them that they haven't needed help before. I just want to say that it's okay to receive help. We will get through this if we keep doing this together. This is the first time I’ve been in Detroit for such a long stretch of time, and it is powerful and heavy seeing the amount of people volunteering and waiting in the lines for hours.
King Edward Brown Jr, Detroit, MI
I come to Bethel every Tuesday with my godmother and we donate the food to a few senior citizen buildings not too far from here. Mainly we want to help and feed the elderly who cannot get out - who are in their 80s and 90s, in wheelchairs and walkers. My godmother and I stand out in the cold for hours until we get the donations from Forgotten Harvest. I’d say we’ve been doing this in the city of Detroit for about eight months now, we go from church to church. Everything we receive we donate, we never keep anything for ourselves. This is a good thing! We service roughly forty and fifty senior citizens a week. We separate the food into boxes and make sure that everyone has ample amounts of the food. I enjoy everything forgotten Harvest does, it’s a very good thing. At this location, they do twice a day food distributions - they come again at noon, for the people who cannot make the morning pantry. It’s a very honest thing. And a very helpful thing. You have single mothers with children and the elderly. Thank god for them.
Davita McCaleb, Detroit, MI
I stay pretty close to the neighborhood - not too far from Bethel and I have four children. This place where you are right now is a safe haven for a lot of folks from the neighborhood, that’s on low income. Like I said, I have four kids, and with Forgotten Harvest being here it helps me so much. I can come up here and make sure my kids have protein, food that will last my family for a while. The people are so incredibly polite here and very resourceful. I have been coming up here faithfully for the last four years. If you’re in the city of Detroit and if you come to New Bethel on Linwood and Euclid - you would be good to go. You’ll be serviced twice a day and it’s just all around a wonderful place.
Kenny Karpov works with soviet film cameras and expired film and also enjoys working with 120/220 medium format film and digital photography. He says of his work: “I wish to create images that are sincere, vivid and powerful.” Based on these three elements, Karpov photographs all kind of subjects, street, documentary, or simply some moments which are special to him. His passion can be traced back to when he received his first camera when he was just fourteen years old. The camera in question, a Kiev 19, provoked a curiosity and enthusiasm that has not faded to this day. His photography is not only a medium for creating pictures, but also a method to communicate with people and the world. Using a spontaneous method, he portrays people and that which surrounds them.
He has traveled the world for the last five years documenting the lives of people at various stages of their migration from war-torn countries to Europe. His latest project is a nonfiction novella entitled Despite It All We Never Learn — a collection of refugee testimonials that were recorded and written aboard various rescue vessels in the Mediterranean Sea over the course of seventeen missions from 2015 - 2019.
His work has been shown in a number of galleries in the US and Europe.
His first solo exhibition of work at M Contemporary Art, entitled Despite It All We Never Learn, was on view from November 22 - December 14, 2019.