Influences for my self design:
- http://www.nytimes.com/1984/03/11/realestate/troubled-lefrak-city-turning-the-corner.html?pagewanted=all
This is an article that I read about my neighborhood and how it was perceived in 1984. It got me thinking about trends and changes in spaces and communities.
2. http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/real-estate/lefrak-city-queens-turns-50-article-1.1159198
Similarly, this is an article about when my neighborhood turned 50 years old and had a profile done on some familiar faces of Lefrak, which was the New York Daily News’ try at describing the community feel of the neighborhood.
3. Season 6, Episode 8 of Girls: Too Much History
In this episode I watched, Ray and Abigail go around interviewing people who have lived in Brooklyn and how they feel about the changes. In the context of the show, I have opinions of what they did but the idea of interviewing inspired me to have that portion in my self design. Below is a review of that episode.
http://www.vulture.com/2017/04/girls-recap-season-6-episode-8.html
4. I deactivated my facebook, and this boy probably deleted his status, but my friend john once wrote this status about how everything changes and you grow. That stuck with me and made me think about his growth specifically because he was one of those kids in my neighborhood that gave me such a hard time. What is it like to meet the people who made you feel like shit after a number of years have passed?
5. Number four brings up another question, which is how do you memorialize people who have now died that you didn’t really know, but represented something more? One of the biggest reasons why I feel the need to photograph my neighborhood is because I think there was a change after the murder of an old schoolmate of mine, Andrew. His death is, in some ways, one that I think is at the center of all these changes going on in the neighborhood. Weird to list death as an inspiration but I can flush this out if need be.
6. Gentrification. New York seems to be a hot city to list when the conversation of gentrification appears, but it is often talked about using Harlem or Williamsburg as the references when there are all these other places that are being gentrified that are not as popular but are well inundated with history and change.
7. Census Data on my neighborhood — specifically related to changes in race. This came mostly out of research I did last semester for a sociology paper on neighborhoods.
8. The movie Steve Jobs inspired my want to do the project in three different formats — film, digital, and polaroid. Danny Boyle does something similar too in the film where the movie is divided into three sections, each filmed differently to indicate the history of film technology. I love it! Not sure I loved the movie though, but that’s just an aside.