'Blood on the Wall'

Mohamed Flites, the lead janitor of Building Services, has a new art exhibit up in the James S. Hall ’34 Memorial Gallery in Butler College. To take the photographs in the exhibit, he drove to the Philadelphia Badlands, a neighborhood known for drug-related violence. His photographs, many of which were taken from the window of his car, depict street art throughout the neighborhood. Many of the murals he photographed are memorials for those who were violently killed. Street sat down with him to chat about his interest in photography and his experience taking the photos for this unique exhibit.

Q:How did your interest in photography start?

A:I moved here in the mid-’90s from Algeria in North Africa, and when you move to a different country everything changes. It was different, very different — culture shock. So one way for me to adapt and learn about my new country was to take up photography ... I started doing landscapes, like all beginner photographers — we all want to be the next Ansel Adams, with the trees, etc. ... but then you get tired of that. You’ve seen one; you’ve seen them all. Then slowly I migrated ... I started to think it’s kind of boring to do just one picture. It doesn’t tell you so much about the subject. During the summer we’re working, waiting for the students to move in, and [the Board of the Memorial Gallery] came up to me and said they would like to do a solo art exhibit of my work because they’ve seen some of my stuff on Flickr. I said, “Okay, sure.” So one day I drove down to Philly and took some more photos and ended up with about 30 photographs.

Q: What have some of your other favorite photo essays been?

A:I have a strong interest in the Civil War — the way people think about it, the way it changed the country. So I also shoot Civil War battlefields. I go to Gettysburg a lot. I mingle with people, walk around, walk the battlefield. I spend days there; I love it.

Q:Do you ordinarily photograph in black and white? What made you choose it specifically for this set?

A:I photograph in either medium, black and white or color. Most of the time I have two cameras with me, and if I’m walking around and I look at it and I think, “Hmm, I think this would look better in black and white” — there you have it. Some of those photographs I shot in color, and then I just converted them into black and white.

Q:How did this set of photos come together?

A:In April, I attended a seminar in the Carl A. Fields Center called the Princeton Photograph Project. The subject of the seminar was photography and social justice. We talked a lot about how photographers represented social injustice in the past, like in the Depression Era. At the end of the seminar, the instructors said, “How about you guys go out and take some photographs? Choose a subject and bring it back for the next meeting.” I’m familiar with Philly, so that’s where I went. And then the program got cancelled, so I kind of slept on them. I never thought I was going to show them to anybody.

Q:So when you were walking around taking these, were you talking to any of the people from the neighborhood?

A:No. No. I didn’t want to. I read the police blotter in the morning. There’s a bunch of crime there and shootouts, and so I took most of the photographs in the morning — around 7 a.m. on a Saturday morning. I was figuring that most people would party late on Friday night, so they wouldn’t be out that early on Saturday.

Q:Do you have any photographs that are your favorites?

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A:This one [pictured] is interesting. In the ’90s, the good people in the area — the families, people who feel that they are trapped by the violence — started a foundation called the Goodlands, as opposed to the Badlands. And one of their summer programs, which they started in 2000, was called Kids with Cameras, and they started giving kids cameras and asking them to go out and take pictures of good things in the neighborhood ... They wanted them to grow up knowing that there’s some good in the neighborhood, instead of all bad. And this [writing on the mural] means “the song of my memory” — it’s very nostalgic, everything is green, everything is great, and I wanted to put it here at the end.

Q:What do you hope people take away from this?

A:I hope that people will get this idea to bring hope [to their community], have kids grow up with a positive mindset. There’s nothing you can do to erase the [violence of] the past. But we don’t live in the past; we live in the future. I’d love for people to maybe give a word of encouragement to someone ... anything so the next generation grows up in the Goodlands as opposed to the Badlands.

Interview conducted, condensed and edited by Molly O’Neill.