Artist Statement

Although skeptical at first about the purpose of this project, it ended up being a great experience for me. I really enjoy walking around places foreign to me and this was definitely one of them. When I walked through the neighborhood for the hour or so that I did, I really did not think it was a bad neighborhood at all. Sure, it was poor, but I didn’t think a lot of crime or drugs would be going on in it. It just didn’t look like it. Then when I talked to Aru he really opened my eyes up to it. Some of the dialogue was cut for the sake of fluency and to save space, but we really had a very open dialogue about race and race relations. This is something that I would have never got on the east side. We also talked about each others backgrounds in the sense of commonalities. The thing that hits me the hardest is thinking that when I left the neighborhood, he stayed. Even though he is trying to help and change it, he is still around it all of the time and that must get old. To constantly fight to keep your community not hungry, off drugs and off the streets would be a big burden to bear, especially since not that many people are helping him out. If I could, I would thank him not only for being the driving force of this project for me, but also giving me a new perspective of how things are in Milwaukee.