NEW YORK NEIGHBORHOODS BLOG
For this blog, we are going out to the streets. You and your partners will explore your assigned neighborhood together, and then each of you will create a blog about your experience. Your blog should include photo or video images of your discoveries. Each group must do the following:
- Find and document an existing artwork in your assigned neighborhood (this can be a work of street art, formal art, architecture, a street performance, something that qualifies as art. You can think a outside the box, but you will have to justify why this work of art is “art.”)
- Interview three people from the neighborhood about where to find art in this neighborhood. (Not each other. Other people who are not in our class)
- Try to explore the neighborhood and capture it’s spirit in video or photos.
Your assigned groups are:
GREENWICH VILLAGE (EAST AND/OR WEST)
- Eric Evangelou
- Emily Jennings
- Kayde Cox
- Kathleen Felisca
LOWER EAST SIDE
- Zohar Bachiry
- Ebrahim Afshinnekoo
- Sylvia Zaki
- Nicola Kornbluth
CHINATOWN
- Vishal Vig
- Jodi Wong
- Rui Yan Ma
- Rawan Shafi
LITTLE ITALY
- Tyler Bianco
- Alyssa Lopez
- Ashley Palma
- Aamir Qureshi
SOHO/TRIBECA
- Aisha Ali
- Mehreen Ahmed
- Natasha Chait
- Reinard Bukalan
Please spend some time researching your neighborhoods before the assignment is due so you have a plan. You may also need some time to work out when you are all able to go together.
GUIDELINES:
- As I said before, you cannot interview people in your group. Please use common sense and approach normal or friendly looking people (shop owners or street performers might be great choices) not aggressive, oddly behaved, violent, or otherwise dangerous people. In the work I did with students interviewing commuters for the puppet play project, we found that people are very receptive on weekends or during the day, especially if you say you are college kids working on a project. It’s not a contest to see who can get the weirdest interview.
- You must all go together. I know that will take some scheduling, that’s why I’m handing out this assignment now.
- You cannot switch groups. You are not being joined together forever and ever, you just have to do this assignment together. If you don’t like someone in your group, just be mature about it and do your assignment, it will be over before you know it.
- Be prepared to spend 2-3 hours exploring your neighborhood. You could also look up a well known restaurant or coffee house in your neighborhood, and enjoy a meal there. That might be a good place to find interviewees.
- Really think about how art influences community, and how communities influence that kind of art that is created for them.
- This blog is worth twice as much as a regular blog.
