The first review for the Made In Brownsville studio saw some exciting ideas come to life! For the first project, we each selected a site within the Brownsville community for which we used the BlackSpace Manifesto, along with prompts for scales and spaces to highlight critical challenges and opportunities inherent in Brownsville. Sites could be lots, allies, slivers, under the elevated rail or adjacent to infrastructure.
We were challenged to deal with each of these sites from three different scales; the scale of evidence, the scale of encounter and the scale of experience. For the scale of evidence, we thought about how our site fit within the larger context of Brownsville and what adjacencies could we co-opt to activate our site. For the scale of encounter, we thought about how might our bodies engage with the site, through which we engaged with questions of materiality, operation and tactility. Finally, for the scale of experience, we thought about how might the experience of the site emphasize the BlackSpace Manifesto principles as well as complement or challenge the existing community.
The past few weeks saw a transformation of these spaces as we presented new ideas and innovations for each of these spaces. The project enabled us to engage as active civic participants in the Brownsville community. Ideas for the project ranged from shoe sole that acts as a drawing machine to decorate local storefronts of the Brownsville community to a lighting strategy underneath the elevated platform of the L Subway to combat violence in Brownsville.
As we move along to the next phase of the project, the next few weeks involves a much deeper dive into studying the Brownsville neighborhood and representing our studies of the neighborhood in the form of drawing, film and modelling.
