A photo exhibit at the Michener Museum explores ‘Aging in America.’
By: Susan Van Dongen
What surprised writer Julie Winokur and photographer Ed Kashi the most about the elderly in America was not the senior burlesque queens, rodeo devotees or Harley-Davidson riders. It was the way seniors are segregated from other age groups in America. The husband-and-wife documentary team were astonished to see just how much older Americans are separated from younger people. They observed that the elderly lived in retirement communities and were out of direct contact with their children and grandchildren. And as for seniors’ connection with the cell phone and text messaging generation, they might as well be living on another planet.
"We’re ghettoized," Ms. Winokur says. "Old people are in a parallel universe and it was eye opening for us to see this. We didn’t know what we were walking into and it was a kind of a behavioral shift for us, understanding the lack of visibility of old people."
It seems to be a peculiarly American phenomenon, too. In other countries around the world, the generations are intermingled, maybe even living under the same roof.
"America is uniquely divided as a culture," Ms. Winokur says. "There’s a much more integrated multi-generational way of life in other countries. We’re missing that acceptance of life stage changes. I think our obsession with independence is a big part of it the ‘each man for himself’ mindset. When you’re old enough, you move out of your family’s house. Families breaking up and moving for various reasons have broken up the continuum of the generations. Retirement communities feed this, too. People are surrounded only by people in their age set."
Mr. Kashi and Ms. Winokur have been documenting this issue for more than 10 years. It has been estimated that every eight seconds another baby boomer turns 50. By mid-century, it’s calculated, there will be more Americans over 55 than under 18 for the first time in history. The fastest-growing segment of society is people over 85.
The uncharted territory of "seniorhood," longevity and the human condition is explored in the photography exhibit Aging in America: The Years Ahead at the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, Pa., through June 24. The show features more than 50 large-format black-and-white photographs portraying a bit of everything from one of the original ’30s-era "Lindy Hoppers" still cutting a mean rug at an advanced age, to the plight of the elderly prison population.
The emotionally charged body of work brings realities of growing older to the forefront without stereotypes or sentimentality. The exhibition is accompanied by a shorter version of the documentary film Aging in America, written and directed by Ms. Winokur, which premiered in 2003 on KQED, San Francisco’s PBS affiliate. Mr. Kashi and Ms. Winokur traveled from coast to coast, exploring the stories of our elders. They did copious research and planned the collection of photographs and stories thematically. For example, they wanted to address end-of-life care.
"It’s like detective work," Ms. Winokur says. "We looked at the topics we wanted to cover, then researched and found individuals who represented the issues we wanted to talk about. We wanted to look at a ‘good death,’ in other words, passing away at home surrounded by friends and family a natural, organic life passage. We found that people in rural areas were more likely to die at home than in urban areas. So we went to West Virginia and went out with hospice workers to homes where the people were in the end stages of life."
The photograph "Transcendence" shows just this a woman who has just died being watched over by friends and family members. Death is a reality many people turn their eyes away from, but Mr. Kashi has lit the scene so the woman is surrounded by light and looks almost angelic.
"That was a central story within the whole project," Ms. Winokur says. "The couple’s names were Arden and Maxine Peters. They were in their 90s and she was dying. In the course of her illness, Arden met a man in his 70s named Warren at a Wal-Mart he always went to, and Warren ended up taking care of the couple. It’s a fascinating story about elders caring for elders and this phenomenal love between the two gentlemen. Out of everything we covered, that story best captured the care, love and support that can be found."
Mr. Kashi is a regular contributor to National Geographic magazine and his photo-essays have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, TIME, Newsweek, Vanity Fair, Fortune, Geo, LIFE, Smithsonian and U.S. News & World Report, among others. He has published two books, the self-published The Protestants: No Surrender, concerning the troubles in Northern Ireland, and When the Borders Bleed: The Struggle of the Kurds (Pantheon). He received an NEA Regional Fellowship in 1991 and has won numerous awards from such institutions as Pictures of the Year, Sunday Magazine Awards, World Press Foundation, and the World Affairs Council.
Ms. Winokur’s work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times Magazine, Salon, Travel + Leisure, Spanish Geo, D Magazine (Italy) and the Sunday magazines of the Seattle Times and the San Jose Mercury News, among others. She is the author of the book, Aging in America: The Years Ahead (PowerHouse Books) which features Mr. Kashi’s photography. Their last book together was Denied: The Crisis of America’s Uninsured (Talking Eyes Media), which examines the plight of the millions of Americans who go without health coverage. She also co-edited the book, We the Media: A Citizen’s Guide to Fighting for Media Democracy (New Press), which looks at the corporate influence over media content. Aging in America is her first film.
One of the more gritty subjects the couple covered was the problem with an aging prison population. Their photography and reportage from a unit for chronically ill inmates in an Alabama prison is sad but fascinating, but also beautifully shot.
"Our very first story was about geriatric prison wards," Ms. Winokur says. "We really ran the gamut. You have that story, then you have one about a couple in their 80s getting married. We were looking for surprises, things that would teach you something, so as not to assume what old age is about. There really is quite an interesting social scene brewing out there because so many people are getting older and are healthy enough to try different things."
Health and a willingness to put oneself "out there" to avoid isolation are the key factors in an upbeat aging experience, Ms. Winokur says. It’s not gender, it’s not socio-economics, it’s "…having a healthy social life. That really is one of the biggest factors in the quality of old age how engaged you are with others. If you don’t have a support network, that’s the loneliest and the most agonizing senior experience.
"America is a society in collective denial of aging," adds Ms. Winokur, who, ironically had to cut the conversation short because her elderly father, who copes with Alzheimer’s and lives with the couple, needed attention. "We appreciate vintage in wine, not people. We ‘distress’ furniture to make it look old, but we pay a fortune to erase the wrinkles that time bestows on our faces. Old age is inevitable. This is reality, so how do we choose to accept or navigate it?"
Aging in America: The Years Ahead, photography by Ed Kashi, with text and video by Julie Winokur, is on view in the Fred Beans Gallery at the James A. Michener Art Museum, 138 South Pine St., Doylestown, Pa., through June 24. Gallery hours: Tues.-Fri. 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m.; Sat. 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Sun. noon-5 p.m. Admission: $6.50; students, $4; seniors age 60 and older, $6; members and children under six, free. The museum presents Voice and Visions in an Aging America: A Roundtable Talk, April 19, 1-3 p.m. Free admission. Advance registration is required. For information, call (215) 340-9800. On the Web: www.michenerartmuseum.org. Ed Kashi on the Web: www.edkashi.com. Julie Winokur on the Web: www.talkingeyesmedia.org

