By Claire Marie Porter, Next City
For Camden resident Erik James Montgomery, his city is many things, but “blighted” is not one of them. Montgomery, a self-taught fine art photographer and the founder and instructor at EJM Foundation, is part of a cohort of artists working on a Camden-based series called “New View Camden.” The project is endeavoring to remake Camden’s image as a city “invincible,” a reference to a line from Walt Whitman’s poem I Dream’d in a Dream, in which he writes: “In a dream I saw a city invincible.”
The scope of the series consists of eight different sculptures and installations throughout the city that will be placed on or around illegal dumping hotspots. Some artists will be using recycled and found materials, and all are placing their projects on a dumped spot, to both reclaim the area and deter further dumping.