Sarai Mari Celebrates New York Rising

"New York is the toughest city in the world, but it responds with warmth when you take action to engage with it," writes photographer Sarai Mari in the introduction to her latest monograph, Sept. 2020 NYC. As the name suggests, her book is a visual time capsule of one month in the Big Apple, which just happened to fall at the tail end of a summertime lull in Covid-19 cases. "I felt like maybe this was it— after October or November, it's going to be a dark winter coming," she says. "That was a moment when everybody just went outside and just enjoyed and expressed themselves."

Mari, a photojournalist turned fashion photographer, took on the project at the request of her publisher, who, like so many others, was eager to see the world after months in quarantine. So for thirty days, and with three cameras in tow, she captured the runners, breakdancers, skaters, protesters, friends, and families of New York City, all with a sense of curiosity and affection that warms each image.

For the cover, as well as a good number of pages inside, she chose pictures of an outdoor roller disco in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, that she discovered through a friend. Between the open space, the smiling faces, and what must have been a great soundtrack, these scenes help to create an unyielding optimism in her work. "I thought to myself, 'If I buy a book about New York, I really want to get some message from New York’s spirit,'' she says, "like 'Never give up.'"

Sept. 2020 NYC is out now. "Sept. 2020 NYC" will be on view from September 23 to October 31 at NowHere, 40 Wooster Street, New York.