"The Occupation Is Us"

What if…

The Occupation Is Us?

On September 17th, 2011, a group of 40 people moved into Zuccotti Park in the heart of Manhattan’s financial district. Their goal seemed as naïve as it was grandiose: Occupy Wall Street on behalf of the 99% of Americans who were getting shafted by a system that favored the other 1%. Now in its 4th week, what began as a festive primal scream has morphed into a nation-wide franchise with protests in over 100 American cities, attracting a wide range of disparate voices who share the frustrations of soaring unemployment, further job cuts, and moribund politicians unresponsive to their plight. Like all New Yorkers pre-occupied with their own frenetic lives, we paid little attention until protesters were pepper-sprayed and arrested while marching across the Brooklyn Bridge.

Politicians and media pundits began to weigh in. Rush Limbaugh and Fox News painted them as a bunch of spoiled kids playing hooky from college. On the other end of the ideological spectrum, National Public Radio exposed the potential for escalating violence between the cops and a rowdy fringe. Mayor Bloomberg said the protesters had a right to be there as long as they didn’t break any laws, and assured us that the cold of the coming winter would make them go away. But who were these people? Official public opinion has generally painted the protesters as a marginal bunch of faceless nameless youngsters disconnected from the harsh realities facing the country. After a rally in support of Occupy Wall Street brought out thousands of teachers, transit workers, teamsters, service employees, health workers – the most powerful unions in the city – we decided to find out for ourselves. We remarked an impressive mix of people of different ages and races; we witnessed an impromptu committee meeting on a sidewalk, as well as polite cooperative exchanges between police and protesters.

On Day 21 we transplanted our photography studio from Chelsea to the middle of Zuccotti Park and began to make portraits of the people who were there. We met nurses, bankers, school superintendents, celebrities, lawyers, students, teachers, engineers and construction workers, employed or not. They came from everywhere: from California and Chicago and Minnesota and Seattle and Oregon and Cleveland and Texas, and beyond from places like Denmark and Brazil and Italy and Australia. Many were local. Some had arrived a few hours before; some had spent an overnight, others had been there four or five; a few since Day 1, 2 or 3. Some came for one day and decided to stay. Many said they were representing friends and colleagues back home who couldn’t be there. In a sea of optimistic faces sharing these precious moments of solidarity, we were approached by the quietest angry man in the crowd. Dressed in a black collar-down shirt and tailored slacks, grey hair neatly combed back, he came over when he noticed us photographing Russell Simmons. They shook hands as if they’d met before. No, he did not want to be photographed or give his name. He was a high-level music executive, caring for his 90 year-old mother and putting two daughters through college, he couldn’t risk losing his job. The movement needed a set of demands, he insisted, it needed to name the culprits and hold them publicly accountable. He may be right, but in the meantime Occupy Wall Street is encouraging thousands of Americans to dream, imagine and hope once again, and ultimately to remind us this is how America was born.

- Edward Hillel

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This project is a collaboration between Edward Hillel and Sean Gilligan.