PIONEERS OF BUSHWICK PROJECT

The 1970s and 80s in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn, NYC were marked by unprecedented arson, crime, gangs and violence. I experienced this cold-blooded reality shortly after moving to Bushwick in 2006. I was awakened at 4 in the morning by a loud noise outside my building that sounded like a gunshot. I jumped out of bed to peer out a 2nd floor window. A body lay on the sidewalk across the street, motionless.

I stayed concealed behind the window curtain, called 911, waited for police to arrive on the street and reflected about my new chosen neighborhood, wondering - - should I move out?, leave? Slowly, I realized that this was just a taste of the environment through which long-time residents had lived for decades. And, although greatly improved by the time I moved in, they, like old-time pioneers of the “Wild West”, had persevered through many years of a lawless Bushwick. My initial fear gave way to curiosity, a desire to know more, to explore, and to make their stories available to the steady influx of new residents within the rapidly-gentrifying neighborhood.

Initial attempts to engage local residents for such a project were disheartening; my ideas were greeted with reticence and suspicion - - in the past, Bushwick had gotten too much bad press and I was viewed as an “outsider”. So I shelved the idea for awhile. Several years later, the Brooklyn Arts Council put out a citywide call for an artist residency program to match artists with NYC senior centers where they would do and share their work. To my delight, a nearby Bushwick center was on the list - - I knew the residency could provide the perfect foothold for finding local residents for the project! I applied (an exhaustive process of detailed project/ budget outlines, references, etc.) but, eventually, through the BAC residency program and a funding grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, the “Pioneers of Bushwick project” began at the Diana Jones Senior Center in Bushwick.

To find possible participants that had lived in Bushwick since 1975 or earlier, I created flyers and reached out to local churches, community boards and other senior centers. I created a pop-up photo studio at the center for interviews and photography portraits. My efforts resulted in a series of these portraits, audio recordings and statements, hand-written, by the participants. Many were immigrants; the struggles of that experience with the steadfast joys of family life, community and cultural background emerged in the text.

The senior center helped to install a 2-part exhibition of my large canvas portraits with text placards and held several receptions to introduce the participants to an audience of community, BAC members and press. Additionally, I had the pleasure to curate an exhibition of local artists at the Center and to include Diana Jones Senior Center in the 4-day Bushwick Open Studios event for the first time. After my residency, the series was presented in a number of local venues and then installed at Wyckoff Heights Medical Center for a year-long period so that visitors could learn about the early days of the neighborhood.