Bridging techniques rooted in photojournalism and traditional documentary photography, City of Champions is a photographic elegy to Meehan’s beloved hometown, and a meditation on a changing America.
Meehan grew up in Brockton, Massachusetts, amid relatives and friends of European descent — the children and grandchildren of immigrants who came to work in the city’s shoe factories, in the 19th and early-20th centuries. She left in the 1980s, during the city’s economic decline and transformation, and heard tell of the city’s changes through voices that were angry — at the city’s decay but also at the waves of newcomers, who were now people of color.
She returned with her camera in 2007, and spent the next three years exploring a place that was at once familiar and foreign to her. This series highlights the way racism and cultural dislocation can fracture a community, and interrogates the similarities — and differences — between Meehan’s Italian and Irish ancestors and today’s immigrants from Haiti, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau.

2008
Archival digital inkjet print on paper

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Archival digital inkjet print on paper

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Archival digital inkjet print on paper

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Archival digital inkjet print on paper

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Archival digital inkjet print on paper

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Archival digital inkjet print on paper

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Archival digital inkjet print on paper

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Archival digital inkjet print on paper

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Archival digital inkjet print on paper

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Archival digital inkjet print on paper

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Archival digital inkjet print on paper

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Archival digital inkjet print on paper

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Archival digital inkjet print on paper

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Archival digital inkjet print on paper

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Archival digital inkjet print on paper

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Archival digital inkjet print on paper

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Archival digital inkjet print on paper

2010
Archival digital inkjet print on paper

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Archival digital inkjet print on paper

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Archival digital inkjet print on paper

2008
Archival digital inkjet print on paper

2010
Archival digital inkjet print on paper

2008
Archival digital inkjet print on paper

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Archival digital inkjet print on paper

2009
Archival digital inkjet print on paper

2007
Archival digital inkjet print on paper

2008
Archival digital inkjet print on paper

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Archival digital inkjet print on paper

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Archival digital inkjet print on paper

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Archival digital inkjet print on paper

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Archival digital inkjet print on paper

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Archival digital inkjet print on paper

2007
Archival digital inkjet print on paper

2007
Archival digital inkjet print on paper

2009
Archival digital inkjet print on paper

2010
Archival digital inkjet print on paper

2007
Archival digital inkjet print on paper

2007
Archival digital inkjet print on paper

2010
Archival digital inkjet print on paper

2007
Archival digital inkjet print on paper

2008
Archival digital inkjet print on paper

2010
Archival digital inkjet print on paper

2009
Archival digital inkjet print on paper

2008
Archival digital inkjet print on paper

2009
Archival digital inkjet print on paper

2007
Archival digital inkjet print on paper

2011
Archival digital inkjet print on paper

2007
Archival digital inkjet print on paper

2008
Archival digital inkjet print on paper