\n\u201cPeople tend to think that bad things happen near Kensington,\u201d he said. \u201cOnly when I started going there, I found out that great things happen there. One of those things is boxing.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nStipanovich is originally from Argentina and moved to Philadelphia with his wife, Sarah, in 2013. He worked as a dentist for seven years before quitting to focus on his creative pursuits. He and his wife now operate a tango studio in Point Breeze and Stipanovich pursues portrait photography on the side.\n<\/p>\n
\nMany of his photo documentaries have been overseas. He has done work with an Iranian citizen who lost an eye during a protest in 2022, veterans of the 1982 Falklands War and low-income populations in rural Romania. Last year, he spent weeks in Suburban Station photographing people experiencing homelessness who go to the underground Center City spot\u00a0during the winter.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI find people who need a photo, who need to be exposed, who need their stories to be told,\u201d he said. \u201cI need to be able to justify the photo.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nInspired by Philly\u2019s boxing lore, Stipanovich said he visited local gyms across the city to observe how they function in their communities. At\u00a0Pivott Boxing Academy in Fairhill, he met dozens of kids who viewed the sport as more than just a hobby \u2014 they were aspiring to be great.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cIt\u2019s like you open a door to a different world,\u201d he said. \u201cThey are training to be somebodies. They don\u2019t just go to play and meet friends. They all want to be a champion.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nFrom September to February, Stipanovich travelled from his South Philly home to the gym twice a week to capture the sweat and struggle. He took over 4,000 photos and\u00a0recalled speaking to kids who were unhoused, from broken homes or generally in need of guidance. The\u00a0parents of a 6-year-old boy with autism told him that their son had been struggling at school before he entered the ring. Since getting involved with Pivott, they told him his grades improved significantly.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cApart from running a business, [Pivott] also has a community function,\u201d he said. \u201cSome of these kids spend the whole day in the gym because that\u2019s where they find their friends, community and the teachers there become an authority in their life.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Most of\u00a0Stipanovich’s\u00a0photos show athletes mid-punch or in their fighting stance among a pack of similarly positioned figures.\u00a0One shot shows a 6-year-old boy catching his breath in the corner of the ring as his coach encourages him to persevere. Stipanovich said hundreds of people had showed up to watch the fights.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThis neighborhood is being stereotyped as undeserving or as lazy,”\u00a0he said. “But here you see exactly the opposite. You see a lot of effort, a lot of discipline. \u2026 My contribution is tiny, but I want people to see that the neighborhood has been stereotyped.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Temple](\"https:\/\/media.phillyvoice.com\/media\/images\/Temple_exhibit_2.width-704.jpg\")
Molly McVety\/PhillyVoice<\/p>\n
Photographer Damian Stipanovich took over 4,000 photos at Pivott Boxing Academy in Fairhill and 12 are displayed in an exhibit at Temple.<\/p>\n
\nMarina Mikhaylova, an associate professor of anthropology at Temple University, met Stipanovich through his tango classes. She heard of his project last year and thought it connected with a class she was teaching called \u201cWorld Cup, Global Cities and Mobility.\u201d She got his work displayed at the Temple Anthropology Lab and Museum and would show the photos to her students.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe talked about what the boxing gym means to the community, how it engages young people and I just found that really interesting,\u201d Mikhaylova said. \u201cEspecially since Damian and Sarah are also from a tango studio, they\u2019re also doing this community building themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nMikhaylova and Stipanovich plan to work together this summer on another photo assignment that centers on attendees of the World Cup, specifically how Philadelphia as a host city engages with tourists and immigrant communities gathering for the shared love of sport.\n<\/p>\n
\nBut Stipanovich doesn’t plan on getting too close to the matches. He said he\u2019s interested in joining soccer fans who gather in parking lots, bars,\u00a0churches,\u00a0block parties or homes to capture the excitement of the tournament from a more intimate setting.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nMikhaylova plans to interview the subjects that Damian shoots for a class she teaches about the social meaning of sporting events like the World Cup. She hopes to display the exhibit in the same corner of Gladfelter Hall in the fall.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI have the chance to go back to Argentina, but many immigrants don\u2019t have a chance to go back to their countries,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen the World Cup comes here, it feels to me that a part of your world is coming toward you. That is a great thing\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tucked in a quiet corner of Gladfelter Hall at Temple University is a modest grid of 12 photos…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":692644,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[78237,703,49,48,94676,253053,1518,10000,82,253052],"class_list":["post-692643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-arts-culture","tag-boxing","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-exhibits","tag-fairhill","tag-philadelphia","tag-photography","tag-sports","tag-temple-university"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=692643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692643\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/692644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=692643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=692643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=692643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}