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Robert Levy | profile | all galleries >> Galleries >> Memphis, TN tree view | thumbnails | slideshow

Memphis, TN

Beale Street
In the overlooked corners of the city, lives unfold from the remnants that others leave behind.

These images bear witness to acts of radical self-preservation — deliberate constructions of shelter, identity, and dignity against a backdrop of indifference.

In a world offering few safe havens, survival often means reclaiming control over one's space and body by any means necessary. What appears chaotic is, in truth, the architecture of agency. What appears invisible is, in truth, a stubborn form of being seen — on their own terms.

These photographs are not simply portraits of hardship. They are portraits of endurance. Of defiance. Of humanity persisting where society has turned away.

About the Work
These photographs were created in collaboration with their subjects.
Consent and mutual recognition were essential: permission was asked, conversation was shared, and the dignity of each person was honored throughout the process.

This work does not seek to "capture" — it seeks to stand beside.

Survival is not always a fall. Sometimes, it is a refusal.
A refusal to vanish, a reclamation of self on the harshest possible terms.

Featured Works
Armored by Abandonment
Scraps of plastic. Crushed aluminum cans. Fragments of the disposable world woven into a makeshift veil. Beneath it, a spirit unbroken. Survival here is not sanitized. It is raw, fierce, and present.

Fortress of the Forgotten
A lone figure builds a kingdom from remnants. Candy-cane fleece, shattered plastics, battered street corners — assembled not in surrender, but in sovereignty.
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Fortress of the Forgotten
"Fortress of the Forgotten"
Armored by Abandonment
"Armored by Abandonment"
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