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Washing was co-created over a five-month period in early 2021 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. During one of our first working sessions as a group, we asked ourselves - given all that is going on in our community, “What would a positive impact look like, sound like, and feel like…”, for an art project about air pollution and the highways? Our initial ideas included policymakers, developers, and planners as a core audience group. As a team, we wondered, “…could Washing hold up a mirror to the industries that historically have shaped Chinatown’s land and environment--often at the expense of working class residents”? One member of our team put it plainly: “They need to hear the consequences of their actions.”
At the same time, we also wanted Washing to speak to Chinatown residents, who live and breathe the impact of these highways. The I-93 and I-90 highways box in the neighborhood on its western and southern borders. They hold a constant embodied presence through its rumbling vibrations, plumes of exhaust, and loud sounds at all times of day. Although residents experience its effects every day, the highways’ origin story and impact on the neighborhood is not always clear. Could Washing share stories that help residents understand why their neighborhood looks the way it does? And, in doing so, recognize their role as part of a broader community that wields collective influence and power?
Grappling with how to address these two audience groups, I felt the tension. Although they weren’t necessarily in opposition with one another, holding the two together asked us to consider what types of stories and aesthetics we should prioritize for Washing. How do different stories resonate with different people? When we evoke visual symbols and shorthands, whose tastes, memories, and sensibilities are we playing into? Within our methods of storytelling, how legible (or illegible) will we be? I name all of these questions to say - who is all this really for?
As artists working within the spatial justice ecosystem, we have an opportunity to reimagine public space through our work, and these questions around audience and intention texture the imaginations we enter. As a team, we grappled with these questions again and again throughout our time creating this piece. There was an added layer of complexity for me, as someone facilitating a group of Chinatown residents, despite not living in Chinatown. I had to consider what my creative choices would mean to residents and what they said about the residents. It was important to move slowly, and to know when to step back and
In the middle of our five-month creation process, we held a listening session for members of the Chinatown community to hear and discuss what we had created so far. I was moved by how many people recognized themselves in the stories we had gathered, and in turn shared their own stories and insights to the group. It was a moment of closeness and shared recognition - I see you, and I feel seen. Afterwards, we debriefed as a group. “Are we on the right track?,” I asked. For our team, the answer was yes.
In the end, from the language we used to describe our work, to the shapes, stories, and sounds we employed, to the spaces we occupied - we designed for the residents. The most powerful moments in the piece echoed back residents’ own experiences,
All photos are taken by Nohemi Rodriguez.
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