A little over a year ago I collaborated with some friends to create levitating imagery as a first reaction to the news of Trayon Martin's untimely demise. The titles of each triptych portrait were part of a whole sentence: In The Hood We Will Witness Lives and Dreams.
The idea stemmed also from what I have noticed and experienced in American culture especially - and painfully so - the attachment society has to limited, definitive emblems and symbols of a person, rather than to recognize 'the being', the character, the soul. To state repeatedly that we all have soaring dreams whether we live in 'da hood' or in a homogenized or insulated gated community, whether we wear a suit or a hoodie, is indeed a social conditioning that must be created and pressed consistently and actively into our collective psyche if such dangerous misconceptions are ever to change. We witness not only what unfolds before us, but we create what we witness, by bringing our perceptions to a scene, a conversation, or chance meeting. If Zimmerman saw a child instead of perceiving a black gangster, Trayvon Martin may possibly have lived, or in fact benefited from his protection rather than to be hunted.
For the triptych works - I asked friends from mixed backgrounds and professions to pose for me in their hoodies for front and back portaits, and in levitating action sequences as a visual attempt to represent the static stereotype whilst actively transcending it.
A short film was also in development to accompany this that I'm hoping to complete by the end of the year.
If only we all remembered simultaneously that it's a simple shift in one's perception that can create huge change...just like the butterfly...
In. The Hood. We. Will. Witness. Lives and Dreams.
Via Flickr:
In. The. Hood. We. Will. Witness. Lives and Dreams., a set on Flickr.
Series Title:
In. The. Hood. We. Will. Witness. Lives and Dreams
A response to Trayvon Martin's misidentification...
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