Artist Statement

Artist Statement

Final Project Film 150

 

 

I must say, going in to this class I had no idea what to expect.   However, now that it is has come to an end I can definitely say that I have learned a lot.  The combination of service learning and the construction of our group media project allowed me to open up and meet people I may have otherwise never had the chance to.  Though it has been difficult, I feel as though I have achieved something:  a broader perspective of the city and its inhabitants, the neighborhoods and the people who work to preserve them.   

            I have come to realize that a community can only be as strong as it decides to be.  The Johnsons Park Neighborhood has seen its share of hardships and misfortune, crime and neglect.  But, the fact that residents have come together to improve their environment shows how determined and strong this community really is.   For my final project I had decided to interview long term residents of the community in an attempt to make a document of the neighborhood’s past, present, and future. I found this to be much more difficult than I had expected.

            The easiest and best part of this project, for me, was the interviewing.  The women that I interviewed were both very thoughtful and accommodating to my partners and myself and made for very enjoyable experiences.  I was nervous to enter the home of a stranger to ask them about their neighborhood, but was pleasantly surprised to be welcomed so warmly and treated to some great stories.

            The interviewees were both very talkative and informational.  Mrs. Otis shared with us her pride in the progress of the neighborhood and reflected on the changes she has seen during her life there.  She seemed positive and hopeful, reminding us that you have to work to make a neighborhood your home, and to do what you can to protect and preserve it.

            Mrs. Evans, while upbeat and friendly, seemed less conscious of the changes going on around the neighborhood.  Her granddaughter, a UWM student, told us that the first she had heard of the Johnsons Park Neighborhood Association was through UWM’s Institute for Service Learning, and had not been aware of it before her involvement with ISL.  They were both hopeful and happy about changes being made; yet they feel that the neighborhood still needs much work.   It was nice to hear honest opinions from residents who have genuine concerns for their community.

            The most difficult part of this project has been the group aspect.  Even as I am writing this I am worried about the final cut of our group video.  For the four of us it was extremely difficult to find times when we could all meet.  Between our jobs, school, and the fact that we all live very far away from each other, we were allowed very little time together to work.  I feel that this greatly affected the overall quality of the video.  However, the absolute hardest part of making this video was the editing process.  Each member of the group edited a different interview to try and capture the best footage for the final project.  That meant each of us trying to find the best two minutes of footage from forty-five minutes of footage per interview.  Not to mention the countless problems we encountered trying to upload our footage to various computers and programs, then trying to send it back and forth to each other.  The biggest hang-up being that some people were using different types of editing software at home that kept us from sharing with each other the work we had done on our own. 

            My original intent was to create a document that captured the past, present, and future of the neighborhood, and I think I stayed pretty true to that.  Though the video may not have turned out as well as I had hoped, I feel that it conveys what we set out to accomplish.  We wanted to offer the viewer an insider’s perspective of the neighborhood.  We wanted to show that inner city neighborhoods are rich with culture and community, and that a strong committed group of residents can change their neighborhood for the better. 

            I found the Johnsons Park Neighborhood to be friendly and inviting on my visits there.  While most people may be intimidated by the locale, I enjoyed seeing beautiful homes and meeting some wonderful people.  Though I would say that my personal experience has been largely positive, I will share one last item that has bothered me.  On my last trip to film in the neighborhood I was driving with a friend to Johnsons Park.  We were excited to be spending a beautiful spring afternoon filming in the park.  However, as we turned down a one-way street we encountered a police barricade and we were forced to reroute.  It appeared as if there had been a crime in the neighborhood.  Yellow caution tape and armed officers lined the sidewalks as neighbors looked on, we turned and kept driving not getting a clear view of what happened.  It is sad to see such a positive experience punctuated by crime.  Though it does not change how I view the neighborhood, I can see that they still have a lot of work ahead of them.  I am excited to see what new things are in store for Johnsons Park and its residents, and I know that they will continue to grow and achieve as they work toward building a better, stronger community. 

Interview with Mrs. Evans

Footage from my second Interview.  Mrs. Evans was great.  She was fun, funny, and a pleasure to interview.  Here she talks to us about police involvement in the neighborhood and how she has seen it change over time.This was also my first experience editing footage with iMovie.    

Interview with Mrs. Otis

This is a clip form the interview with Mrs. Otis.  She was very insightful and was a great subject to interview.

 interview

JPNA Slideshow

While researching for this project I took over a hundred pictures of the Johnsons Park Neighborhood.  I wanted to illustrate the changing environment of the neighborhood, contrasting the old and the new.  I chose a few of my favorite pictures to put together into this slideshow.  I feel that these pictures represent the rich culture of the area and capture the resilience of the community.

Johnson Park Photo Essay

Johnson Park Photo Essay

3-27-09

Joe Brady

            As was required for this assignment, I recently spent some time in the Johnson Park Neighborhood taking pictures and trying to learn about the community.   A pleasant Sunday afternoon found the neighborhood quiet, but also showed signs of a neighborhood in transition.  Most streets were calm, quiet, and lined with many new or recently renovated homes.  However, in contrast to the numerous charming new homes, there were still several old, dilapidated structures that serve as reminders of some of the problems that have faced the neighborhood in the past.

            In garages and driveways men tinkered under the hoods of cars, taking advantage of the warmer weather.  Children played on the playground in the park, or played basketball at the Brown Street Academy.  Residents got on and off of city buses, or sat outside to enjoy the weather. 

            It seems as though the spring season will also breathe a new life into the neighborhood, as evidenced by the garden.  Though the growing season is not yet under way, signs of life appeared in the garden in the way of brightly painted tools and equipment that had been recently used.

            The neighborhood showed much promise for further progress.  Several lots are under construction now, and some houses were being renovated as we watched.  There were also advertisements detailing further development of the area, offering lots for sale in the developing neighborhood.

            The neighborhood’s personality showed in the murals adorning the buildings.  Depicting a group of working class people standing together, devoted to maintaining pride in their neighborhood.  The more the neighborhood improves, the more likely it will flourish as new residents and businesses are attracted to it.

            Photographing the neighborhood allowed me to get a little more insight into life in the neighborhood.  Seeing each street and house from a different angle gives you a better understanding of how residents may view their neighborhood, or how someone might view yours.

Johnson's Park Media Project Proposal

For my media project I am going to interview neighborhood residents about their concerns for the neighborhood.  I think it is necessary to gain perspectives from those who have lived in and grown along with the neighborhood.   The people of the neighborhood are the ones who need to create the changes they want to see, so I would like to ask them what they have been doing to make their community great.  I will attempt to find what residents feel are problems in the neighborhood, what the neighborhood has achieved so far, and to find out what other progress they would like to see take place in the neighborhood.  Along with these questions I hope to attain a history of the neighborhood from the perspectives of those who share that history, and see how they intend to shape it’s future.  I hope to learn what kind of community projects have been put into action to make the neighborhood a stronger, safer, thriving community.

The American Way

Joe Brady

2-27-09

            For this essay I have chosen to look at two different photographs to analyze what they say about what it means to be “American” and how race effects what that means.  The United States of America has a long history of racial bias, often hateful, cruel and violent.  However, that is not a part of American history that is often recognized or talked about openly.  I will attempt to further examine how race has effected what being an American means.

            When looking at the picture At The Time of The Louisville Flood (Margaret Bourke-White, 1937) we see a group of African Americans standing in a line, some holding baskets or buckets.  From the titled of the photograph we can infer that the flood has affected these people and potentially left them homeless.  We may first assume that they are standing in a bread line, collecting food for themselves and their families.  The looks on their faces are sad, some almost angry, as they stand single file lining an urban street.  What is most striking however is the billboard that decorates the wall directly behind this line of people.  The billboard shows a white family driving in a car through an idyllic countryside, nicely dressed, broad smiles on their faces, and the proclamation “There’s no way like the American Way”.  And the banner across the top of the billboard proudly claims for us “The Worlds Highest Standard of Living”.  That is where the disconnect lies, between the image on the billboard and the people in front of it.  There is an obvious separation between the world portrayed in the billboard and the real world in which these people live.  Richard Dyer writes, “Racial imagery is central to the organization of the modern world.”(1).  From this we can see how the white racial imagery of the billboard pronounces prosperity and happiness, championing the “American” way of life.  But the photograph itself is a portrayal of the opposite.  It show’s the bias of the “American Dream” as it were.  Theses African Americans have been displaced by natural disaster and driven to poverty in the face of an already bigoted society, one that tells of a high standard of living that they do not personally enjoy.

            The second image is a still form History and Memory  (Rea Tajiri, 1991) that show a nicely dressed Asian American couple posed in front of an American flag.  The solemn looks on the couple’s faces along with the title “History and Memory” lead you to think of the ways that Asian Americans have been discriminated against throughout American history.  America has a way of teaching and remembering it’s own history that often involves overlooking it’s numerous ugly parts.  The American flag is the symbol that our country gathers behind to celebrate freedom, liberty, justice, and equality, and in this photograph it still represents those things.  However, it has been used to fuel cruelty, hatred and racist tendencies throughout much of this country’s history, especially in the scope of WWII.  When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor the government, in an act of paranoia and discrimination, placed many Americans of Japanese decent into internment camps.  We locked up our own citizens, taking from them the rights that we were fighting to protect. 

“The media, politics, education, are still in the hands of white people, still speak for whites while claiming- and sometimes sincerely aiming- to speak for humanity.”(1)

Our country is largely run by older, wealthy, white men with no perspective

other than their own who convince themselves that they are acting in accordance with the best interest of all Americans, while often not only neglecting, but also specifically discriminating against others whose rights are no less equal than that of their own.

 

 

 

Works Cited

(1) Richard Dyer, “On the Matter of Whiteness”, Only Skin Deep, 1997 pgs. 301-304