Brittany Greeson: Framing Resilience in the Water Crisis of Flint, Michigan
By Brittany Greeson
brushing his teeth at his home in Flint, Michigan on January 20, 2016. © Brittany Greeson/The New York Times, 2016.
Courtesy of the artist.
For photojournalist Brittany Greeson, the most important aspect of her work is relationship building.
“Embedding yourself in the community is crucial because you offer a pair of eyes that national media don’t have,” she says. “You see what’s going on on a daily basis.”
Greeson’s photography series We Fear the Water on the water crisis in Flint, Michigan captures the intimacy of trauma. That is, the seemingly invisible issues, the things we don’t immediately think about when we hear an entire community lives with lead-contaminated water.
She photographs Flint residents in the privacy of their homes: a woman rinses chicken in the sink with bottled water as she prepares dinner, a father bathes his child with baby wipes, and a boy brushes his teeth without turning on the tap. These moments captured on camera evoke the visceral.
However, you see more than anxiety and fear in Greeson’s images. You also witness the resiliency of this community as young people distribute truckloads of water, police officers travel door-to-door to pass out filters to the elderly, and indigenous community members send prayers over the contaminated water and for the people of Flint.
For Greeson, trust is the foundation for documenting these interactions.
“I enter someone’s [life] with the understanding that this is a gift,” she says. “This is a blessing that people let me into this space with them. You want to treat it with sanctity.”
Flint, a city of approximately 100,000 people, is majority black. Nearly half of residents live below the poverty line. However, they receive some of the highest water bills in the country. The water crisis began after Flint’s drinking water source was switched to the lead-contaminated Flint River in April of 2014 in an attempt to reduce costs.
Yet, it took until December of 2015 for the city to declare an official State of Emergency. As of May 2016, the state will payresidents’ water bills in full, but only for the month. It’s unclear how and if credits will be applied in future months.
“The water crisis has been happening in Flint for almost two years,” says Greeson. “The water switch was in 2014 and it took people until 2016 to care? It infuriates me to this day. There were people protesting outside of city hall. There were things happening here that people didn’t really know about.”
While a senior at Western Kentucky University, Greeson took time off from school to intern with The Flint Journal in February of 2015. She arrived in Flint after reports of excess levels of the cancer-causing chemical byproduct TTHM were found in the water.
From there she began documenting the stages of the crisis. After completing her internship, the water crisis in Flint continued to heighten. Greeson knew her work was unfinished.
“I connected to Flint,” she says. “I talked to my professors and they agreed the story was really important.”
She dropped down to part-time status at her university, taking two online classes, and moved back to Flint in January of 2016. Her decision to return caused Greeson to reflect on her own connection to water and the responsibility that accompanies telling the stories of the residents she photographs.
