Asphalt Spirits NYC
Journey into Awakening and Remembrance
Part I: 1976-1986 + Part II: 1999-2026
“Finding yourself is actually returning to yourself. An unlearning, an excavation, a remembering who you were before the world got its hands on you.”
-Emily McDowell, writer and illustrator
Asphalt Spirits NYC Part I: 1976-1986 + Part II: 1999-2026, A Journey into Awakening and Remembrance is a ongoing poetic photographic work (and developing photographic, film and soundscape installation and photo book) by *award-winning filmmaker Jahmani Perry. The work and project explores the many dimensions of the human spirit, and the everyday interior lives and realities of New Yorkers, on the unpredictable and chaotic streets of the city. Within this work, the images are an inquiry and celebration of the diverse beauty, mystery, aliveness, vulnerability, joy, and paradoxical nature, amidst our individual and interconnected existence. The work probes the deep ties between the heart, soul, and lived experiences of New Yorkers across decades, reflecting on transformation - peronal and collective, where race, class, gender, identity, wealth, power, and culture intersect and collide.
Perry’s photographs reflect the perspective of a curious and mindful filmmaker, photographer, and storyteller. His work is both a photographic inquiry and a spiritual journey. In his images, he presents a different, an inner world of New York, where the noise and chaos fade out and the transcending encounters become clear. As Perry reflects: I grew up on the streets and grit of Brooklyn and the city. This work has been and continues to be an incredible awakening journey and exploration—an unfolding meditation on the vibrancy, resilience, and presence of this remarkable city and its people. Walking and photographing on the streets for over thirty years, remains a practice in stillness, trust, and being present to the different rhythms, liveliness, and energies of the moment. Being a witness with an open heart, has allowed me to see, experience, discover and appreciate a larger perspective, and context, revealing the richness and sacredness of nature, humanity and life; its unpredictable challenges and fears in the midst of this turning and divided world, and remembering the many dimensions, unseen truths of the timeless and innermost essence of who we are, within and beyond our everyday lives.
Asphalt Spirits NYC Part I: 1976–1986, shot on Kodachrome and Tri-X film, captures people’s everyday lives amidst a bygone New York—on the edge of collapse, gripped by violence, homelessness, drug addiction, and the AIDS crisis, and deep racial tensions and class divides. Amid this turmoil, the raw energy of hip-hop, punk, and street art emerged alongside rising gentrification, greed, and cultural transformation. In contrast, Asphalt Spirits NYC Part II: 1999-2026 reflects a transformed New York, where beauty, wealth, poverty and complexity now collide in sharper, more urgent contrast. Together, they are an ode to two distinct eras of New York, each alive with movement, resilience, and self-reflection.
In this uncertain and tumultuous moment—here in America and across the world—Asphalt Spirits NYC Part I: 1976–1986 and Part II: 1999–2026, offers a visual and experiential space to reflect on the mystery and tensions of our shared humanity. The work illuminates the layers of our individual and collective experiences from the past and present, revealing what binds us across time and what we are passing on to future generations.
Julian Cox, Chief Curator and Deputy Director at the Art Gallery of Ontario and former photography curator at various museums in America and Europe, said of Perry’s work, His photographs are intimate, thoughtful fragments, lovingly wrested from the buzz and hum of daily life in New York. A still quiet pervades these pictures, achieved through a subtly anonymous stance developed and known. The photographs are poignant and demonstrate his desire to show the intricate links of the visual drama surrounding and connecting us all. Perry is a storyteller whose photographs have the broad, resonant structure of elemental tales. As an installation and published monograph photo book, Asphalt Spirits NYC Part: 1976-1986 + Part II: 1999-2026 would make an important addition to the field.
Asphalt Spirits NYC, the first solo exhibition of this ongoing series, was shown at Just Above Midtown /Downtown Gallery, New York, NY, Curator: Linda Goode Bryant (1983). This show was recently mentioned in curator, Thomas Lax’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA, 2022) Just Above Midtown: Changing Spaces show catalog, under Jahmani’s a.k.a John Perry III, Recent Photographs. This MoMA exhibition celebrated the landmark influence of Just Above Midtown Gallery (JAM) on New York City’s art scene in the 1980s and beyond.
*Sony Innovators Award, a.k.a. John Perry III.
For more information about Asphalt Spirits NYC Part I: 1976-1986 + Part II: 1999-2026 projects, don't hesitate to get in touch with Jahmani Perry, email: jahmaniperry@yahoo.com