Overcoming Separation
Syracuse / New York / USA /Suny College of Environmental Science and Forestry
1759
Our whole project changed when we first visited the site. Our analysis that we conducted remotely gave us an expectation of what we would find when we got there, and that expectation was challenged by what we saw. Despite the separation that the site had been subjected to and we had heard so much about, we saw a vibrant community that successfully uses traditional spaces in non-traditional ways. We found a prime example of this in a parking lot of a corner store- where people, instead of parking their cars and leaving, parked their cars and stayed, using their personal property to make the place their own. There was laughing, pointing, shouting, eating, and loud music. These vibrant signs of life coexisted with the separation and disruption that could also clearly be seen. We noted that this vibrancy had a strong effect on our perception of the separation, and shaped our understanding of the place as a landscape of vibrancy, not just separation.
