Somewhere between then and Now
I learned to love the city
The city that knows no borders
One neighborhood bleeds into the next
Somewhere between then and Now
Stand judges and scholars
Justinian, Manu and Louis IX
Now, she knows no borders
Somewhere between then and Now
I came back home
Where stands my own statue:
A polar bear
Somewhere between then and Now
The bear was painted brown
Either a tribute to “Kavkazskaya Plennitsa”
or “Masha y Medved”
I decided to make a collage and a poem to go along with it. The collage includes photos from our walk and a statue I found in a local park of the home where I grew up. The neighborhood is filled with Russian-speaking immigrants and I found out that the bear statue placed in the park was build as a tribute to the community. It was originally a polar bear but has since been painted into a brown bear, probably because of how often it would have to be repainted with its white coat. I connected the bear statue to the Now statue that we saw, and my poem demonstrates how culture is interwoven in our communities as well.
It is so interesting because I grew up going to Kelly Park with my friends and that bear has always been there. When I was in elementary school, that bear was a white polar bear, and they painted it brown when I went to middle school. That bear is so memorable for all the children that grew up in the neighborhood.
I love the way several images and things we saw during the walk around the neighborhood, as well as aspects from your personal life, are very literally woven together to form such an interesting image. The poem also adds to the image you made, the use of Now throughout it is very creative.
In your poem, I really resonated with the “knows no borders” theme because New York City is made up of many different cultural contributions that come together and coexist. This is also something I have paid attention to in my experience here because every corner of every street may be completely different in every way. I also really liked how you combined your own culture and experiences with the art that we learned about at the park due to the connection of the meaning behind it.