Memorial murals are symptoms of city and private sector disinvestment. For scholars and community members alike, the walls humanize victims of ghettoization caused by the legacy of institutionally discriminatory planning, policies, and practices. For non-community members like myself, the walls contextualize urban statistics and theories on death, violence, and inner-city decay. But for people who live amongst the walls, memorial murals re-write space and history. By bringing memories forward and having them fade again, memorial murals mirror life in that they have a birth and a death of their own. This blog is about the life and death of memories themselves. Memorial murals resurrect the absent and, by so doing, blur the distinction between existence and representation. My blog attempts to uncover the power behind the paint.

Thursday, December 27, 2007

Eyes


Why do memorial murals appear in certain neighborhoods and not in others?
What is behind the paint?
What do we all gain from understanding memorialization processes?
What ways do you see space, place, and history, (re) claimed?

This blog began as a medium to publish what started as research and ended as a fascination of mine: memorial murals in outer-borough New York City and how they reclaim space and history, ultimately, I think, by living a life of their own.

Please tell me your stories, your encounters, your experiences of these walls.

I'll post mine (be it wordy, much too much and not enough crafted) too.
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