Statement

Throughout my work, I am exploring issues of dominance and the division of land and space due to class, race, politics, and conflict. In the beginning I looked at plant life, protected and preserved by humans as well as controlled and governed in order to accomplish goals determined by curators at an outdoor museum. I turned to exploring divisions and differences in neighborhoods within close proximity of one another as a way to draw attention to the physical boundaries created by money and power. Attempting to show this by bringing fragments of these places to the same level through a video grid, I was careful not to favor one over another. These spaces, which I saw as fragmented and separate, turned out to have more in common than I expected, forcing me to re-examine my intentions. Though I was continually exploring topics with two or more opposing sides, I was always careful to balance them equally as to not say anything that might be out of place. A final video in which I unapologetically label neighborhoods in Chicago through my own perception of the place and who lives there begins to conquer these issues, letting my own bias and identity show through. Moving forward, I want to know more about the shifting of populations, contestation of spaces, and the effects of power on minority populations.