The Corner: 23rd & Union | Public Art Collaboration
Sometime in late 2008 or early 2009 I responded to a call for a photographer to work on a documentary project. The project, called “The Corner: 23rd & Union”, focused on changes happening at one of the most important intersections of the Central District. The call was issued by public radio journalist and producer, Jenny Asarnow. As a new resident of the Central District, Jenny was interested in how the neighborhood was changing. 23rd and Union was once a commercial, social and cultural hub of the Central District’s Black community. By the mid-2000s it was a major inflection point for the long process of gentrification that began in the 1990s. By 2008, when Jenny received a grant to produce the project, it was a flash point for old and new residents and businesses, all struggling to define what the neighborhood would become. “The Corner: 23rd and Union” invited long-time residents to share their stories as a way of diving into the history of the neighborhood and better understanding these conflicts.
I received Jenny’s call for a photographer via an email forward. From her description of the call I wasn’t clear about the true nature of the project, but I knew it was about my neighborhood. At the time I was wrapping up my project on Obama delegates. I was looking for something new to get into. All of this was enough to pique my curiosity. I contacted Jenny and during the spring of 2009 I worked closely with Jenny and created this series of portraits and verite video footage for “The Corner: 23rd and Union”
Here is a description of the project:
The Corner: 23rd and Union was an interactive public radio documentary about, for, and created with the people who make the corner part of their lives. From mid-June through August 2009 an art installation, featuring larger-than-life photographs of neighbors, revitalized an empty lot on 23rd and Union. The artwork invited viewers to call a phone number, where an automated voicemail system plays neighbors’ impressions, memories and stories, and invites you to share your own. Jenny worked with a web developer to program custom software that processed new listener voice mail responses and posted them to the project’s website, 23rdandunion.org. Some of the stories aired on KUOW 94.9 Public Radio and Hollow Earth Radio.
Click here for excerpts from the project.
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