Homewood
My work considers the physical and psychological space that exists between people. How does that distance manifest itself? How do we see or feel those manifestations? We use many criteria to decide what it should look like and different types of structures to define it. The space that I document can take various forms and encompass physical, psychological, and sociopolitical factors, and involve many of the daily micro decisions we make to differentiate ourselves.
I live in a racially and economically diverse neighborhood on the verge of gentrification. Although I have lived there over a decade, I am a transplant to the neighborhood, with enough access and privilege to become a homeowner in my mid-20’s. My neighbors and I live together and separately from one another, choosing connection or disengagement, sometimes based on race, socio-economic factors, religion, or politics. While the neighborhood engages in a heated debate over a proposed historic designation, what role do I play in its gentrification?
“I could tell you how many steps make up the streets rising like stairways, and the degree of the arcades’ curves, and what kind of zinc scales cover the roofs; but I already know this would be the same as telling you nothing. The city does not consist of this, but of relationships between the measurements of its space and the events of its past…”
– Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities