Florida Book Awards, Silver Medal for Visual Arts
Photographs that meditate on the vanishing place of mobile home parks in the landscape of Miami
In a collection of images that are both quiet and telling, Sunset Colonies portrays the vulnerabilities experienced by residents of South Florida’s mobile home communities amid rapid urban transformation and the threat of economic displacement. Photographer Diego Waisman captures a fractured sense of place in Miami-area neighborhoods that once flourished but are now increasingly forgotten.
Essays by scholars Amy Galpin, Louis Herns Marcelin, and Alpesh Kantilal Patel give context to the current situation of these trailer parks, which at first promised their occupants stability, affordable housing, and for many, a comfortable retirement. But development initiatives, surging rent prices, and environmental hazards have disrupted this dream. Waisman’s images, collected over seven years, ruminate on worn corrugated exteriors, cracked ceramic tile, and the looming construction of luxury apartment buildings nearby.
An homage to a way of life that is quickly slipping away, Sunset Colonies raises urgent questions about the invisibility of mobile communities, their histories, and their potential futures. Waisman also emphasizes the strength and resilience of people whose definition of home lies in the balance between memory and encroaching reality. Together, the images and essays in this book create a multilayered meditation on place, community, and dignity.
