Good Sick

Good Sick by Jordan Baumgarten is a photographic portrait of the US opioid crisis, shown through its effects on one neighbourhood in Philadelphia. The neighbourhood of Kensington is a nexus for those in and around the city seeking heroin and all that it entails. The supporting addiction based economy co-exists alongside everyday life in the neighbourhood and in its surrounding landscape there are signs and premonitions of disorder and confusion. The photographs in this book depict chaos; nature encroaching on urban decay; an ambiguity between magic and darkness; private moments which are public; animals and humans roam free–fuelled by id, and always, somewhere, there is a fire burning. The images in Good Sick are a small proportion of those taken by Baumgarten, a native of the city, between the winter of 2012 and the spring of 2017.