Sunset Colonies: A Visual Elegy to South Florida’s Mobile Home Communities

Photographs that meditate on the
vanishing place of mobile home parks in the landscape of Miami

In a collection
of images that are both quiet and telling, Sunset Colonies portrays the
vulnerabilities experienced by residents of South Florida’s mobile home
communities amid rapid urban transformation and the threat of economic displacement.
Photographer Diego Waisman captures a fractured sense of place in Miami-area neighborhoods
that once flourished but are now increasingly forgotten.

Essays by scholars Amy Galpin, Louis
Herns Marcelin, and Alpesh Kantilal Patel give context to the current situation
of these trailer parks, which at first promised their occupants stability,
affordable housing, and for many, a comfortable retirement. But development
initiatives, surging rent prices, and environmental hazards have disrupted this
dream. Waisman’s images, collected over seven years, ruminate on worn corrugated
exteriors, cracked ceramic tile, and the looming construction of luxury
apartment buildings nearby.

An
homage to a way of life that is quickly slipping away, Sunset Colonies
raises urgent questions about the invisibility of mobile communities, their
histories, and their potential futures. Waisman also emphasizes the strength
and resilience of people whose definition of home lies in the balance between
memory and encroaching reality. Together, the images and essays in this book
create a multilayered meditation on place, community, and dignity.