Slow Violence, Slow Photography: Chris Gregory’s Portrait of Puerto Rico after Maria – Reading The Pictures

How do you photograph systemic failure? How do you photograph the long tail of the United States’ brutal, gradual, incompetent betrayal of Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria? Christopher Gregory does it through juxtaposition. He moves from portraits to infrastructure and back again. He pairs photographs in diptychs that simultaneously jar and gel. He pictures Puerto Rico one year after Hurricane Maria but makes the hurricane seems like yesterday.