Peter Bialobrzeski photographed urban structures in Manila, where a shantytown between two container terminals was supposed to be the site for a few photos.
After slumbering in a digital archive until the fall of 2008 and following six months of research in Asia, the time came for the artist to view the material. This happened to coincide with the bankruptcy of the Lehman Brothers Bank, also known as the the Crash of 2008, a climax of subprime mortgage crisis and the bursting of the US housing bubble, which plunged the global economy into a widespread, deep recession. Approximately 20 million Americans lost their homes to foreclosure during this broader financial crisis initiated by the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

Although even before all of this occurred a connection could be established between these images and the photographs of impoverished rural Americans commissioned by the Farm Security Administration in the thirties, those events gave Bialobrzeski’s works yet another dimension.
Furthermore, they pay homage to the desire of people to make homes for themselves. The will to survive and creativity manifest in these dwellings made of the waste products of civilization.