Coney Island is no longer that vast mythical leisure ground so loved by New Yorkers, nor the emblematic motif of American picture-making it was for Walker Evans, Lisette Model, Diane Arbus, Bruce Davidson, Robert Frank, or in Weegee's unforgettable crowd in swimsuits. The faces of this popular place, caught by Baptiste Lignel and combined in diptychs with still lifes found on site and recorded in the studio by Johnny Miller, are the last rays of a ground now given over to excavators.

“Their Coney Island makes you smile because you can smell the dogs and the garbage, you can feel the sand between your toes and the trash you are stepping on.” — Bruce and Sophie Gilden