The Sofas Of Los Angeles – I Photograph The Abandoned Sofas On The Streets Of Los Angeles.

This is a photo portrait project I began to document some of the many thousands of sofas which are abandoned on the streets of Los Angeles annually.

The genesis of this photography project came about from the growing blight of abandoned sofas, mattresses and furniture that appear on the streets & sidewalks Los Angeles. It seems as if the ground pushes up a fresh crop of them, daily. They usually appear overnight and then sit, withering and wilting in the LA sunshine until they are eventually collected by the Sanitation Department. What was once the centerpiece of someone’s home sits abandoned on a city sidewalk. They have become part of the fabric of LA, reflecting on one hand the transient nature of the inhabitants of this city and secondly as a sign of the disposable nature of our consumer driven world. I believe this to be an LA phenomenon. You don’t see this so much in other North American Cities, at least, not on this level.

What has become apparent about photographing this cast off furniture is how some of the pieces blend in with their new unintended environments. Some of the sofas look more at home and fit their new location better than they would have ever looked in somebody’s living room. I approach and photograph each sofa or mattress as if it were a formal photo portrait, each sofa being symmetrical placed in the middle of the frame and becoming the centerpiece of each photograph with the city falling off in the background but giving us clues to it’s location. I formally identify and name each sofa by titling the photograph with the street name and neighborhood.

A few years ago, The City of Los Angeles launched a Customer Service App (My LA 311) for the residents of LA, you can pay your electrical and water bill, get information or request service from the Bureau of Sanitation including bulky item pickup and illegally dumped items – you can even attach a photo. I began to report every sofa that I photographed whilst driving the endless asphalt streets of LA. …the collection has grown considerably.

This project represents another view of Los Angeles and identifies another element of the many fragments that go into the making of this complex Metropolis.

Andrew Ward.
Born, Dublin, Ireland 1971.

More info: www.sofasofla.tumblr.com