Untitled, from the series Dingbat 1983

Judy Fiskin made this small, black and white photograph of an apartment building, part of her Dingbat series. Emerging in the 1970s in Los Angeles, Fiskin’s work is defined by its deadpan, almost detached, recording of the city’s architecture. These Dingbat apartment buildings, common in postwar LA, offered affordable housing but also became emblems of suburban sprawl and architectural monotony. What interests me is that Fiskin, as a woman artist, turned her gaze to these banal, overlooked structures. She avoids the heroic scale often associated with architectural photography. Instead, she focuses on the ordinary, the everyday. In doing so, Fiskin quietly critiques the social and economic forces that shaped Southern California. Her work invites us to consider the gendered aspects of the built environment. Whose stories are told through architecture, and whose are left out? The photograph invites us to look closer, to question our assumptions about home, place, and belonging.