Scott Houston is a documentary photographer and filmmaker who’s work is concerned with the cultural, social, and political landscape of contemporary America. His work has received world wide publication for projects on drug use, teenage access to guns, incarceration, the culture of consumerism, the decline of American manufacturing, and many other pertinent issues in contemporary America. After his BFA at NYU’s Photography and Imaging department he joined the Sygma photo agency and has worked with, Time, Newsweek, US News and World Report, The London Times, National Geographic, Stern, Spin, Le Monde 2, Der Spiegel, The Open Society, CNN, PBS, and MTV among others. His work on the drug “ Ecstasy, “ has been recognized by The W. Eugene Smith Fund. It has also been exhibited at Perpignan in France, the Noordelicht gallery in Holland, ICP, the Corcoran gallery of Art in Washington D.C. and the Empty Quarter in Dubi. He is a graduate of The School of Visual Art’s MFA Photography Video and Related Media program which complies with the philosophy and understanding that, “the camera is a universal matrix for documenting, exploring and interpreting the ever changing world around us.” He lives in New York City.
East Liverpool
The town of East Liverpool is situated forty-five miles west of Pittsburgh on the Ohio river on the borders of Pennsylvania and West Virginia. From the turn of the century to the mid-fifties the town was a manufacturing center mainly of china and steel. By 2016 it has lost most of it’s industry and only two china companies remain. East Liverpool reflects the decline of small manufacturing towns in the United States particularly in the north east and mid west. There is great polarization in the United States and you can see this in East Liverpool. There is a lot of unemployment, drugs, and growing crime in the town. Then there is the Country Club set … a small group of well to do’s who play golf at “The Club,” own nice cars, guns, and vote Republican. They live in their own little bubble unaware about what goes on in the town.
A telephone pole with cut wires stands by the rail track at Shippingport nuclear power plant east of East Liverpool Ohio. East Liverpool is in the ” rust belt,” of the industrial mid west and is depressed economically. Where there were once many small industries as well as substantial steel industries there are now very few. In East Liverpool there is a high rate of unemployment with little hope of new jobs. In East Liverpool there is a high rate of cancer patients many belive it is because of the fumes from the nuclear plant at Shippingport.
Tiffany Faulk lies dead in a coffin with two of her friends grieving by her side. Tiffany was murdered by her boyfriend who beat her with a baseball bat to the back of her head seventy two times. Tiffany’s boyfriend was ” cracked out,” on drugs including crystal meth.Tiffany was also five months pregnant. The brutality of the murder shocked East Liverpool and was a wake up call to many about the drug problem in the whole area. East Liverpool is in the ” rust belt,” of the industrial mid west and is depressed economically. Where there were once many small industries as well as substantial steel industries there are now very few. In East Liverpool there is a high rate of unemployment with little hope of new jobs.
To view more of Scott’s work, please visit his website.