{"id":56930,"date":"2021-03-18T13:51:09","date_gmt":"2021-03-18T13:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.adrianflux.co.uk\/influx\/?p=56930"},"modified":"2022-06-21T15:55:37","modified_gmt":"2022-06-21T14:55:37","slug":"blood-harmony-cruise-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.adrianflux.co.uk\/influx\/cars\/blood-harmony-cruise-night\/","title":{"rendered":"Blood Harmony: Cruise Night"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A new book paints a beautiful portrait of a community bonded by custom steel and hydraulics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photographer Kristin Bedford<\/a>\u2019s beautiful new book Cruise Nights<\/a>, which is published by Damiani Press<\/a>, lifts the lid on a scene whose representation is often shot through with clich\u00e9 and stereotype.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For outsiders Southern California\u2019s cholo culture<\/a>, replete with high hitched Dickies, too-tight white vests, jail tatts and supercharged Machsmo – is synonymous with toxic masculinity \u2014  laden with a cartoonish kind of female sexuality and plagued with gangsterism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Low Riders that form the material culture of the Mexican community of Los Angeles are seen as totems of criminality. The reality is of course much more nuanced than that. And rather than imagining lowrider as icons of the outlaw – in Bedford\u2019s book they are presented much more accurately – as the connective tissue of a dynamic, family-based culture whose centre is kindness, love and respect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy priority in any project is relationships and listening to people and understanding,\u201d says the photographer.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOver time, kinship was developed and friendship with people whose lives I was documenting. All of my photographs are unstaged, so having that type of trust is integral to my process.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The work was made between 2014, when Bedford arrived in LA, until 2019  and the last hurrah of the Trump presidency, which did much to demonise a community already suffering from the stigma and prejudice encouraged by the regime’s \u2018Build That Wall\u2019 fantasia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Polaroids<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Bedford attended her first cruise night close to Christmas in 2014  \u2013 in the parking lot of a Mexican restaurant. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEveryone knew one another. They were like a family,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While she didn\u2019t know anyone at the event at the time, she soon got talking to people and was invited back to successive events. It was the start of a five-year relationship that culminated in one of the most interesting books on car culture to emerge in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The term \u2018Lowrider\u2019 doesn\u2019t only refer to the customised car (usually a mid-century Detroit classic) with a lowered body. It also refers to the position of the driver giving it that low-slung gangster lean. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tradition originated in LA\u2019s Mexican-American community in the mid-to-late 1940s and flowered during the chrome clad post-war prosperity of the 50s. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was from the very start all about display and identity- and over the years it has become a central celebratory culture around which many working-class Mexican Americans have gathered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Bedford quickly became aware of the extent to which in the barrios of East Los Angeles, the customisation of a car is considered a fine art \u2013 one carried out with love and scrupulous care. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI came to see that lowriding was another way that people who are marginalised express themselves politically, culturally and socially,\u201d she explains. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLowriding is in the DNA of the Mexican-American community of Los Angeles. It was deeply a part of their humanity; I saw children born into the lowrider community, and that passion and love is passed down between generations. It is not just a hobby. It\u2019s an internal, very deep, heartfelt expression of who they are. And it took being inside the community to really understand that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new book paints a beautiful portrait of a community bonded by custom steel and hydraulics. Photographer Kristin Bedford\u2019s beautiful new book Cruise Nights, which is published by Damiani Press, lifts the lid on a scene whose representation is often shot through with clich\u00e9 and stereotype. For outsiders Southern California\u2019s cholo culture, replete with high<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":56931,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1779,1928],"tags":[1001,147,984],"class_list":["post-56930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cars","category-edition","tag-american","tag-muscle-car","tag-muscle-cars"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nBlood Harmony: Cruise Night - Influx<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A new book paints a beautiful portrait of a community bonded by custom steel and hydraulics. 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