I am the neighbor walking in her neighborhood down a street that she walks several times a day for the last several years. I am trying to get from point A to point B while noticing that my local deli that has been there for over 12 years is now gutted, the crappy taqueria is dark with a For Rent sign, and the same scaffolding that has been on Bedford between Lexington and Greene is not going away any time soon. I belong to these streets that I walk and the camera is the outsider, it represents the gentrifier. It captures 10 minutes in a lifetime at a moment when everything is about to change.
30 Days Being A Civilian Body Camera
I will wear a body camera for the next 30 days, documenting all the time I spend in the public realm. The camera will be dismounted and powered off while in my home, with my family, in other private residences, and in the place where I work. Every night I will post the video unedited to this blog as a document of my experiences as a civilian, as a woman, a mother, a brown body wearing a body camera. I will include a link to texts that I am reading while being recorded. These texts will provide a social and political context for the public space that is being documented, and will have a relation to self surveillance, protest, new technologies, the #BlackLivesMatter movement, and any other subject relating to what it means to be a body on the streets in this present moment.