In her own words, Baltimore-born photographer SHAN Wallace talks about the intention behind her Golden Time of the Hour project, in which she regularly documented the patrons of Lexington Market, an iconic Baltimore landmark that was established 1782. This year, thanks to $40 million in financing and new management, the market will be closed and renovated, leaving many Baltimoreans to believe that what has made it such a treasure will be disposed of in order to accomodate transplants. Below, SHAN talks about her fondest memories of the congregational space and why it holds such value in her heart:
I think the first time I went to Lexington Market with my camera was in 2015 and the reason I did it, at that time, I was still tryna figure out what type of photographer I wanted to be, what type of work I would make. And Lexington Market was a place where I felt comfortable, it was a place that was very familiar for me. I went a couple times but stopped because I'd yet to conceptualize my work. I hadn't thought about what would be my purpose for doing it. I started back about 6 or 7 months later. It was like, I have this camera, and I wanna photograph people in an environment that gets ignored. I started going every Saturday then started going a few times a week. Then I started giving people physical copies of photos [of themselves] because I saw it as a way to collaborate with people so we could have joint ownership of the work. But it was also a way to spread love and positivity at Lexington Market. It was transformative for me because I saw how people’s impressions and self-esteem changed once I engaged them. At the time it was just something I wanted to do but then that graduated to knowing the market was gonna change. I loved reconnecting with some people that I'd seen throughout my entire childhood.
On a personal level, Lexington Market was one of the few memories I have of my mother who died when I was in the 11th grade. We would get flavored water, we would get pretzels, she would get cornbeef sandwiches, I would get chicken. It was always a place we’d go for many reasons: to get food, to meet people, to see her friends, to go shopping. It was like a hub. It was a part of our weekly ritual. This project is very personal because a lot of the people I photograph are a part of the same community as my mother. My intuition tells me that. Some of those people have worked there for over 20 years. I went to go talk to one lady—she was a janitor—and I was like, “You know, you’ve been working here since I was a kid,” and she was like, “Yeah, I’ve worked here for 27 years.” I felt connected to the city there. It’s very Black Baltimore. Even going to high school—I lived in East Baltimore but I went to Edmondson [in West Baltimore]—I would have to go right across the street from the market to catch the 23 bus or the 40 bus to school. So as I got older, it was a place I would see my friends. I got in a shit ton of fights there. So to hear it was changing only motivated me to think more critically about the work and the project and the process.
During the project, I started to connect with more people and I started to actually talk to the people who ran the market because I was just doing this on my own. I started to learn about the market’s mission and its core values from a corporate level. I learned that the market is one of the longest running markets in the world. It’s so old that slaves were sold there in the basement. They’d get held and fed down there and then they’d be brought out front to be sold. There are Baltimore Sun archives of ads that confirm this. Learning about that added a lot of context to my everyday conversations. These personal histories are tied to the market. My goal wasn’t to create a story that a reporter could do. Anyone could come to Lexington Market and take pictures. But what I wanted to do was, I really wanted to have moments and memories attached to the photographs I was taking. I knew I had to continue and it was hard because I was traveling a lot and I always wanna be there. But I knew I had other places to be so I really had to organize and be intentional about what time I was going.
Before then, I always felt like it had this bad rep. We all know, you can go there to get anything: drugs, clothes, food. And it’s populated with all sorts of people from addicts to dealers to students to working class people to homeless to people that work around there. A lot of the businesses that were around there over 10 years ago aren’t there anymore so a lot of the surrounding parts of Lexington Market have changed. It was important for me to step out and get those surrounding parts like the homies outside the hair store or the Israelites on the side preaching their word. It rewarded me with a lot of words of encouragement. So many of those people are part of my chosen family who still stay in touch with me. In the beginning, it was like I had to help people understand how to engage with me because so many people weren’t used to having their photos taken. Giving people photographs was one of the biggest parts because it became an agreement. It was a way to collaborate and a way to build that trust and love. It was an honor.
