Harvard neurologist examines the middle class through photojournalism
When Julian Fisher took his camera to Lowell, Mass., to document the struggles of middle-class Americans, he stopped to photograph a man crossing a bridge. Behind the bridge, visible between the metal girders, stood the city’s historic textile mills, now luxury condos. In the day, this man could have worked in the mills, said Fisher, a neurology instructor at Harvard Medical School. Today, he now probably could not afford to live in them. That photo is one that Fisher uses to tell the story of “Trapped in the Middle: The Effect of Income Inequality on the Middle Class in America,” an exhibit on display at the Japan Friends of Harvard Concourse Gallery in the GCIS Building until April 26. Fisher’s 18-month process to seek out middle-class families and individuals willing to tell their stories began in late fall 2014. He stayed local, mainly exploring the towns surrounding Brookline, where he lives. “You don’t have...