Peter Bialobrzeski’s photographs of houses in the informal community of Baseco, Manila, might be especially relevant right now. The small, tilting, wood-framed homes in these pictures, sealed with scraps of fabric, plastic tarps, and posters, are vivid expressions of vulnerability and determination. They remind one of the emergency conditions in Haiti, where thousands of people are currently living in similarly constructed makeshift shelters and, because of cyclical poverty and challenges in rebuilding, could remain indefinitely.
     The collection’s title, “Case Study Homes”, refers ironically to the Los Angeles Case Study Houses of the 1950s, a series of modernist prototypes documented in coolly glamorous photographs by Julius Schulman. Bialobrzeski’s photographs don’t have that gloss, of course, but they possess a stately formal beauty that confers dignity on the houses. A diffuse tropical light mutes vivid colors and shadows to give the images a silvery, etched appearance, like Walker Evans’ Depression-era photos. While Evans looked straight into his subject’s faces, however, Bialobrzeski only examines the outside of their homes, a strategy that steers clear of sentimentality. These photographs give straightforward testimony.