NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND
Documenting the people who live underneath Las Vegas.
Las Vegas, city of lost wages and languishing morals, is so fervently dedicated to gambling that it is now home to a staggering 1700 gaming venues. Rising up from the vast and dusty Mojave Desert, Sin City is a scintillating, multi-fluorescent hub of activity; a harsh contrast to the eerie inertia of the barren, arid hinterlands of Nevada. It’s brash display of tawdry opulence, coupled with a love for liquor, gluttony and commercial sex render it the ultimate adult playground, and considering this clear monomania for debasement, it’s a wonder what manner of men are actually able to reside in this cultureless metropolis.
In a series of revealing images, LA-based, Manchester-born photographer Austin Hargrave captures the lives of several Las Vegas residents, but certainly not the kind you’d imagine; delving deep into Sin City’s underground, Hargrave and his camera shed shocking light on a community that is both socially and geographically withdrawn.
10ft below the kaleidoscopic carpets of Caesars Palace, in the subterranean recesses, lives the pariah of this shining city; a homeless community rumoured to be 700-strong. An underground populace has long been acknowledged as a merely fictional phenomenon, thanks to celluloid portrayals such as Luc Besson’s ‘Subway’ and Virgil Vogel’s ‘The Mole People’ whose subterranean protagonists are either callous criminals or monstrous mutants. But Las Vegas’ damp underbelly plays host to a wide range of individuals – those who’ve found themselves in unfortunate situations, addicts and alcoholics, as well as innocent folk who’ve lost their way. Unsurprisingly, many rely upon Sin City’s gambling glory to make a living, spending their days endlessly credit hustling.
Cool, dark and bare, the 200-mile labyrinth of flood tunnels populated by this society couldn’t be a more powerful example of the extremities that co-exist in the Western world if it tried. And yet, whilst the two worlds oppose, they also run parallel; like the midnight chancers that pace the casino floors on the Vegas strip above, the denizens of the underground are also playing roulette; with their own lives. Day in day out this secretive community exposes itself to the perils of the storm drains that include flash flooding and venomous black widow spiders lurking in the shadowy crevices. The Nevada heavens rarely open, but when they do, they can be deadly; in the past few years alone, a tragic amount of drownings have occurred. Most astonishing of all are the living arrangements inside the tunnels; spaces are furnished with beds, wardrobes and shelving units, and contain many of the mod-cons of present-day living like showers and stereos. As beneficial as these storm drains may be in providing shelter and privacy, this earthly divide between the city’s ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ could well prove to be majorly detrimental to support that this lost community badly needs; ‘outta sight, outta mind’.
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