Life Among the Ruins

This portfolio combines image selections from my MFA thesis project with the text from my exhibition’s artist statement. The images are from Buffalo’s Silo City/First Ward area, an area I spent a substantial amount of time studying alongside my father, whom is the subject of the accompanying written narrative.

This work serves as a window into an area marked by industrial transition and uncertainty; In my work documenting these environments, I focus on the patterns, left behind relics, and small details that tell the story of what once was and what could be.

As part of my thesis exhibition at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, I also mapped the divisions of space within the cities I have spent my life traversing (Buffalo, NY; Detroit, MI; Chicago, IL; Milwaukee, WI). I started with a series of digitally rendered illustrations constructed in Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator that are based upon Sanford Insurance Maps that document the street plan of each location.

I then used records from the U.S. Census Bureau to divide up each map I drew by neighborhood boundary. I printed each neighborhood onto silk organza fabric and painstakingly stitched them back together into a series of quilts.

The question driving this portfolio- how does division of space function in shaping a sense of place?