Kodak City

In its prime, Kodak employed thousands of people and turned Rochester into a wealthy town. After the digitalization of photography, the business declined. Catherine Leutenegger’s ‘Kodak City’ series, reveals what remains of Kodak as a business and the ways in which the decline of the company impacted the city of Rochester. It is a testimony that is both engaged and objective, covering a part of America’s industrial heritage that faces inevitable disappearance. It is also a way of paying homage to the father of modern photography, George Eastman (1854 -1932) in his hometown, which he transformed into the cradle of the world’s collective memory for the entire 20th century.