We thought it might be a good idea to visit the SOM building in Chinatown, it was during class time so one of us texted people in class to see if we are needed. It was a nicely built one, quiet with a decent amount of people inside. We like the round skylight in the center, but otherwise it was kind of boring. As we walked out of the building, I was still thinking about how to reply the photographer I DMed yesterday on instagram. And then we saw a tiny baby bird on the cement ground.
The Political Economist's article on the OPC reminded me of those pictures of people on south side beach in Chicago. I checked his website, he seems to care about this city. There were projects like "Hoop Dream" and "Fresh Garb".
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| University Village 2016 |
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The photographs aren't aesthetically astonishing but tend to be documentation of the society. The message is simple and clear especially for the "HOOP DREAM". What's great about this project is that it scales down the vague and big "racial" "poverty" issues to a simple and innocent problem: A safe and nice place for the ballers.
When I shoot work I don't think about how my photographs will look on a wall, I think about how they will function in book form.
That's funny because artists' books are almost as exclusive as the institutionalized exhibitions(pictures on the wall). I do think zines is a great form of spreading information but I hope they won't be just cheap collectables or romanticized image.
To my surprise, he replied like a normal person. Adam Jason Cohen, the photographer, even told me about a project he did about how the golf course displaced the diy community's "lit" dog park called Jackson Bark. That was helpful of him.
We also got the text saying people were all leaving, no need to go back to class. That was helpful of her.
Woodlawn resident Todd Agosto began building the park in 2014 with pieces he salvaged from construction sites. Gradually other neighbors began to help with the project. Now Jackson Bark is the third-largest dog park in the city, with two separate play areas and 100 pieces of equipment, all maintained by Agosto and a collective of volunteers.
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| A “Jackson Paw-lock” painting |
I knew little about the south side community or its history but lately I've been exposed to informations on demolition of public housing; Brutalist architecture; Theater Gate's Archive House; the term "gentrification".
The article I read by one of the SAIC faculty, the well known Ellen Grimes, will be coming in next Monday to answer questions. She basically criticized the proposed plan for the Obama Presidential Library and questioned the "long benefits" it would bring to the south side Chicago. I wish she said more about the specific the consequences on previous attempts to transform the southern side, maybe more about the context, which the architects ignored according to Grimes, for the people that's not so knowledgable about this city. The OPC proposal is not necessarily call for elitism or gentrification but the architects' vision of the site should give some considerations on how to really engage the community.
So we picked up the bird because it's very special looking. Grayish green feather with yellow and black stripes on top of it head. We took it on the red line with us and made a scene on the train. We tried to give it a name: Thor, Zeus, or Josef Bird. My friend held the bird like a disney princess. We thought one of those architectural models could be a bird house.
Today is probably one of the last few warm days before a long winter, the bird jumped/flew into the plants when we got back on the ground again. I secretly hope we couldn't find the bird in the pictures we took.
